A couple of days ago, I said in my Facebook page that I would not be voting in next year’s elections. It was the first couple of days of the period when the Commission on Elections was accepting Certificates of Candidacy filed by all bets for the various posts up for grabs in the mid-term elections.

On the last day of the filing of COCs this week, I confirmed my wish to treat the 2025 polls like the plague, one that had to be avoided at all costs as to vote would be to endanger my sanity.

This is not an exaggeration, folks. The next election is shaping up to be the worst of the worst where the quality of candidates is concerned. There are too many silly people seeking to land a Senate gig.

I can make light of them, when in fact their very presence in the ballot is actually heartbreaking.

How in God’s holy name, I ask myself, can such candidates as Willie Revillame and Lito Lapid be taken seriously by the electorate? Yet there they are.

This pair is just part of a long list of senatorial wannabes that help make the Philippines the global laughing stock, where politics is concerned.

I know, I know. The Philippines is not the only country which produces the oddest assortment of politicians.

I recall that some decades ago, a porn star actually won in Italy. Her name was Cicolinia or something like that, and she did serve in their parliament.

There have also been multiple cases of lawmakers coming to blows in such places as Taiwan. This brazen display of excessive masculinity by middle aged or even old men is actually quite amusing.

Just last week, two of our honorable senators nearly came to blows for reasons not too clear. Migz Zubiri and Alan Peter Cayetano has a shouting match, with fake tough guy challenging the former Senate president.

Idiot, I told myself. Migz is a martial artist who could have KO’d Cayetano in a heartbeat.

I know I’m not alone in how sick the low quality of candidates makes me feel. Friends and acquaintances are all over social media, and they say pretty much the same thing. WTF is happening to the Philippines, they ask.

WTF, indeed.

While there are, to be sure, good men and women who can make excellent senators, their chances of winning are pretty low.

One of the most qualified is lawyer Chel Diokno, son of the great lawmaker Jose W. Diokno. Chel was previously dean of De La Salle University’s College of Law, which means he’s no slouch either.

Chel ran twice for the Senate and lost both times, and most everyone knows why. He ran as an oppositionist, and had insufficient funds to mount a decent campaign.

Earlier this year, he was included in the Senate slate of the opposition. Chel was one of three frontliners, along with Kiko Panganiban and Bam Aquino.

In ages past, such a triumvirate would have been considered sure winners. They had the prodigy and were respected figures to boot.

But that was ages ago. Panganiban and Aquino are still bent on running, it appears, but Diokno has opted to run for party-list congressman instead.

He’s just being a realist. His chances of making it this time around are pretty good. The same is true for former senator Leila de Lima, who really belongs in the Senate but who is the first candidate of another party-list.

And speaking of porn stars, I had an exchange with a friend also on Fb and mentioned in passing that I would rather have a Rosanna ‘Osang’ Roces in the Senate than the likes of Robin Padilla and Bong Revilla.

Another friend chimed in, saying she sees Osang as a “real” person. One who speaks her mind honestly, almost always with a high level of sensibility.

I agreed wholeheartedly. But like the late, great Dolphy, she knows her place in local politics. She knows where she belongs, and that cesspool is one place she will never enter.

Quite incidentally, in this political period, Fb and all other social media has become pretty toxic.

I found this out when I wrote about my disappointment at Vilma Santos, who is running for governor in my home province of Batangas. I might have voted for her had she not surprised everyone by acting like a typical traditional politician by naming her two sons to run with her, one as vice governor and the other as congressman. Trapo, I  called her.

One netizen lambasted me with non-stop insults to the point that I challenged him to a fight. Any kind of fight – guns, knives, or fists was fine by me.

It was a public challenge done in the heat of the moment, but the fool wisely backed off.

Was I kidding? Maybe, maybe not. I guess it was my Batangenyo pride that made me react to what I felt was a serious insult, ergo a challenge. Yes, I know, I’m too old for this sh!t.

I found out that this limp-wristed netizen is little more than a Vilma fan, who often writes on his Fb page how awful a person Nora Aunor is. Jeez, I thought to myself. This guy needs a life.

The toxic environment is often seen in social media, as a well-known acquaintance  —  he’s a VP of a top 1,000 corporation  —  very recently found out. He had commented on the DLSU-UP game won by our favorite team, when a lady had a negative comment, which was an out-of-place reply to the subject.

Good thing for her the guy was pretty polite. In so many words, he said, “You’re out of place, lady. Get out.”

And so it goes. From now until election day, there will be private and public debates, many of which will be ugly, and which will become violent.

The Philippines remains one of the countries where voters become to emotionally involved with their bets to the point that they are willing to do bodily harm to anyone who disagrees with them.

I see this happening in the States now.

As for my choice to not vote next year, my decision still stands. To vote is to waste my time, and I’m not a dodo like a lot of men and women in the Philippine electorate.