“My vote is the concrete expression of my sovereignty and my authority”. There’s only one simple way to make true this quote, and it’s what I did today.
police booth at one polling area
info booth flocked by voters asking for their respective polling precincts
I went to my polling place to vote. Its half past eight in the morning.I saw a lot of queues around. Took me a while to get a priority number, and got 372. But well, if the number being attended to is at 50-60, then you just have to do some other things and come back. And yes, after 8.5 hours, I have cast my vote. I have delegated my power and authority to the elected officials.
campaign paraphernalia, scattered everywhere
queuing voters waiting for their turn
Meantime, the setting of the local election here in my place, has never changed, despite the improvement: use of PICOS machines, the first automated election in the Philippines. Some provinces in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao were declared failure of election due to absence of either PICOS machines or BEIs or voters themselves said to be harassed by armed groups (political rivalry). Others experience different cases of election fraud. But the other voters didn’t not stop coming back until they were able to vote.
voter trying to familiarize the sample ballot while waiting
voter looking for his name on the list
There is also the frustration of the voters: the clustering of the polling precincts, reason for the very very long queue. But if you look at the good
side, the transmission of results was indeed fast. The Commission on Election is expected to give the final result, the next day after the Election.
"its 10AM...my number 263 and the queue is still at number 50!"
At the end of the day, albeit the atrocious Election, most if not all Filipinos still went out of their way to cast their votes. We just hope that the rightful officials will reign and act on the
mandate given to them which is to establish a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
