02/09/2026
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐โ๐๐๐ฒ๐จ๐ง๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐๐ฅ๐ฅ๐จ๐ญ: ๐๐๐โ๐ฌ ๐๐ฒ๐๐ฅ๐ ๐จ๐ ๐๐ข๐ฌ๐๐ง๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ฆ๐๐ง๐ญ
For years, fewer than three in every ten Benguet State University students have taken part in the election meant to choose their leaders. This year appears to be following the same pattern. As of August 26, only 2,529 votes had been cast out of an estimated 14,000 students, placing participation at less than 20 percent of the university population.
The number is concerning on its own, but it points to a larger question: why has such a low participation become ordinary? More importantly, why are fewer students willing to step forward and lead in the first place?
Benguet State University had just conducted its Supreme Student Government elections for Academic Year 2026-2027, which gives the students the responsibility of choosing those who will represent them in university governance. Candidates have presented their platforms, made their cases, and asked for the confidence of the student body. Yet behind the campaigns and election coverages lies a concern that cannot be overlooked. For a school with such a large population of students, the numbers show a clear gap between having an election and having students take part in it. The issue, then, points to a growing distance between students and the process through which their representatives are chosen.
Voting is one of the clearest ways students can influence who speaks for them in university governance. The SSG occupies a position that connects the student body to the administration, particularly in matters concerning student welfare, policies, activities, and institutional concerns. That is why participation is crucial. The fewer students who vote, the smaller the portion of the student body directly involved in determining the leadership that will represent everyone.
Student apathy is certainly part of the problem. University life already asks students to balance examinations, laboratory work, organizations, deadlines, and responsibilities outside campus. For some, an election becomes another task pushed behind more urgent concerns. Others may feel disconnected from student government or may not know enough about the candidates and their platforms. Some may have already decided that their vote will not make much difference.
But saying that students simply do not care stops the analysis too soon. Look beyond, and another concern emerges: fewer students seem willing to become candidates themselves.
For several years, SSG elections have often had only one or two parties competing for positions. Some major positions have also faced little competition.
There are understandable reasons why students may hesitate to run. Student leadership requires time, effort, and public accountability. It means attending meetings, responding to concerns, balancing organizational work with academics, and answering for decisions made in office. For students already carrying demanding schedules, leadership can look less like an opportunity and more like another weight to carry.
However, the effect does not end with the students who choose not to run. Fewer candidates mean fewer choices. Fewer choices lead to elections becoming less competitive. When an election feels less competitive, students may see less reason to participate. And this causes future candidates to see even less reason to step forward.
The problem starts feeding itself and becomes a cycle. Are students disengaging because there are fewer meaningful choices, or are there fewer meaningful choices because students have already disengaged? Perhaps both are happening.
A student who feels that an election offers little choice may decide not to vote. A student who sees little interest in student politics may decide not to run. When both happen, the next election has fewer voices, fewer choices, and potentially fewer voters. What begins as individual decisions eventually becomes a pattern, and that pattern can start to feel normal. That normalization is the greater concern.
Student governance deserves to be treated with the same seriousness expected from other forms of public leadership. Students are taught to question institutions, evaluate policies, demand accountability, and participate in civic life. Yet those principles lose their substance once they stop at the classroom door.
Voting, however, is more than simply casting a ballot. It is an exercise in discernment and critical thought. It asks students to examine competence, question credibility, and decide who deserves their trust.
But there is an irony in student politics, where students often become interested only when something goes wrong. When a facility needs improvement, a policy becomes inconvenient, an activity falls short, a concern goes unanswered. Suddenly, the student government matters.
The criticism can be loud, even relentless. Yet when the time comes to decide who will carry those concerns in the first place, many of the same voices fall silent. They question the people in office, but forget that before there was an office, there was an election. How can students demand leaders who listen, act, and represent them well when they themselves have little interest in taking part in the process that puts those leaders in place?
Voting is not a guarantee of good leadership, but refusing to vote guarantees that the choice will be made without you. A student body cannot expect accountability from a government it was unwilling to help elect.
The BSU SSG Elections provide a concrete reason to take that pattern seriously. If students already treat an election within their own university as something too insignificant to participate in, what happens when the stakes extend beyond campus?
โ๐๐ฅ๐ฐ ๐ญ๐ข ๐ข๐ฎ๐ช๐ฏ, ๐ข๐ธ๐ข๐ฏ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ต๐ญ๐ข๐ฏ๐จ ๐ข๐จ๐ฃ๐ข๐ญ๐ช๐ธ.โ It is an easy conclusion to reach when the same disappointments seem to return in different forms. Why invest time, attention, and hope in choosing representatives when experience has taught people to expect little? That frustration is understandable. If nothing changes, perhaps it is easier to stop caring.
But what happens when that mindset follows students into an election where they actually have a direct say? If the ballot is ignored because nothing will change, then who, exactly, is being given the power to decide what does?
The sentiment may begin as frustration, but it can slowly become a habit. The less people participate, the less they believe participation can change anything. The less they believe in its value, the easier it becomes to stay away. Eventually, โ๐ข๐ธ๐ข๐ฏ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ต๐ญ๐ข๐ฏ๐จ ๐ข๐จ๐ฃ๐ข๐ญ๐ช๐ธโ becomes a reason to surrender the chance to influence what happens next.
The answer is not to shame students into voting, nor to pretend that every election will suddenly produce the change everyone hopes for. It is to make participation more deliberate. Students should take the time to know the candidates, examine their platforms, ask questions, and vote with intention rather than treating the ballot as an obligation to get over with.
Participation should also extend beyond election day. Students who are capable of serving should consider stepping forward. Those who may not run themselves can encourage capable peers to do so. Because student leadership cannot remain a responsibility passed around within the same small circle year after year.
Student leaders and the university have a responsibility, too. Elections should make information accessible, platforms should be clear, and candidates should be held to the promises they make long after the campaign ends.
The goal should not simply be to produce a larger number on an election report. It should be to rebuild the belief that participation matters, that leadership is worth pursuing, and that representation requires more than waiting for someone else to do the work.
The 2,529 voters cast on August 26 should prompt a harder question about the state governance at BSU: not only why students are choosing not to vote but why less students are choosing to step forward and lead.
Telling students to care more is an easy answer to a difficult problem. Dismissing their frustration as mere apathy is an even easier one. Care does not grow from scolding, and participation does not survive when students see no reason to believe it matters. That is how disengagement becomes a cycle.
And if that cycle is left unbroken, the next election may not simply have fewer voters. It may have fewer people willing to give students a choice at all.
โ: Justin Anikha Fetalvero
๐ผ: Li-ann Sania Lando
