The votes have been counted and win­ners have been declared in B.C.’s 2011 municipal elections. We congratulate Richmond school trustee Rod Belleza for winning a well-deserved second term, finishing fifth in a field of seven. Belleza made history as the first Filipino-Canadian to be elected to a political office in B. C. in 2008. We also congratulate Edwin Empina­do for his historic win in the City of Kiti­mat. Empinado is the first Filipino to win a council seat in the province, finishing second in a field of six. In any contest, there are always win­ners and losers. While some of our kababayans did not make it, they too deserved our thanks and recognition for their valiant effort to win political office. It is no secret that running for office is no mean feat – the amount of time and financial resources needed to mount a campaign is tremendous.

Those who did not make it include: RJ Aquino (Vancouver city council), who made an impressive record with a respectable 39,054 votes; Gabby Kalaw (Vancouver parks board), finished with the highest number of votes among Filipino candidates in Vancouver with 48,600; Juliet Andalis (Vancouver park board), 12,639 votes; and Jade Tomelden (Burnaby school board) with 2,257 votes.

Except for Andalis, the three are neo­phytes and hopefully they will continue to seek office in the future. No election commentary is complete without touching on the issue of voter turn-out which again proved to be pa­thetic. While the Philippines had voter turn­out of 73.42 percent in the 2010 elec­tions, the Canadian record is dismal.

B.C. has the lowest voter turnout in the country for civic elections. The last big turnout in the city of Van­couver was in 1990, when 52 percent cast ballots.

For this year’s municipal elections, Vancouver had 34.57 percent of voter turn-out, while Burnaby had 23.35 per­cent. Richmond had 23.96 percent, and the City of Kitimat had the highest at 56.42 percent.
Governments should invest in voter education initiatives to encourage peo­ple to participate in the political life of the country. Perhaps, advertising in the ethnic media should be considered since most immigrants are not very fa­miliar with the political process.

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