One more voter, one less vote

It’s been a week since May 10. I thought about writing this and always had second thoughts.I guess having nothing to blog about forced me to (rethink).

I woke up late in the morning (at least relatively) that Monday. I remember watching the news of both major channels and they were saying that lines were long at the election precincts. I thought that the news would be ominous. I was wrong.

Upon arrival at the Jose Abad Santos School, the lines were anything but long. There were classrooms that were filled to the brim but ours wasn’t. We (me and family incorporated) were in and out of the place in 30 minutes or so. We actually took longer finding our names because we went to the wrong school, initially.

I never was a boy scout so along with my family we just went to the old school, Raja Soliman (it had relocated), where we used to vote (or thought to be). I had my doubts on the school. We were looking through the list for our names and like bar examinees, we were in a frantic search for our golden names. Alas, it was not there. I told my mom that perhaps she got our barangay number mixed up. (I.e. instead of 143, she said 134 or some such). She in fact, did.

The sun was high up in the sky and so was the temperature. Hot hot hot! It was a good thing I brought some liquid nourishment with us. Otherwise we’d have died of dehydration. I can just imagine what the students have to endure when they are in here during school days!

So dear Mr. President, you have a lot to do. I hope you don’t put blinkers and doggedly pursue a case against the former President. The former President has a lot to answer to the public, and so do a hundred other politicians. But the priority should be the three Es – education, economy, and equitable living. If we are just going to have a run of the mill government, then we’ll just have more of the same coming out of the mill. The vicious cycle will just continue.

Anyway, going back to my dissertation on my voting experience….

So there we were, at the precinct, waiting for our turn to test the new, modern way of voting. Finally, it was our turn, I was led to a seat and happily looked at the form. I voted for a president, a vice president, twelve senators, and then picked a party list. I looked and checked if I got everything correctly.Yup, I got everything right.

I stood up full of glee and was now in front of the PCOS machine. I fed the machine my form and my vote was counted. (There’s a joke that Erap thought he won the election because the PCOS machine said, CONGRATULATIONS. Even in this election, people never tire of Erap jokes).

I waited for the rest family, inc. before we left the school. As we went out of the school, they were discussing about who they voted for, and also mentioned the councilor, mayor, and congressman they voted for. Whoa, waitaminit kapeng mainit! I did not vote for any one of these positions! It was then that it dawned on me that while I was meticulous in looking for our names, I wasn’t meticulous in double-checking the form I was filling up.

High tech method, old school stupidity. So I suppose I can join Erap’s ignominy, whether the story is true or not. Haha.