The Power of the Vote

May 10, 2010, election day in the Philippines is historic in several ways. First of all it is the first time that the national elections are automated. Secondly, it is a chance for the electorate to get rid of the Glorious disaster of the last 9 years and thirdly it shows us that religious command votes no longer matter much.

Besides the heat (and I was not that hydrated, stupid me and got a mild case of heat fatigue!) I noticed that even in precincts where the heat index would have reached 43 C, hardy anyone wants to leave the queue. It took many voters 4 hours (leading prez contender Noynoy Aquino not exempted) cast their vote. Congratulations Filipino electorate. Your vote was read by the PCOS machine.

Some PCOS machines conked out apparently due to the heat. But equipment failure contrary to pessimists was estimated at less than 1%

Within a minute after the polls closed, it seems that PPCRV has got a few results in its parallel count. Expect this to snowball as time passes.

Electoral exercise is the distillation of what democracy is. We have been voting for more than 100 years and we tend to be a bit blase about the whole thing. But I am always reminded of and even haunted by the photo in the "Australian" newspaper more than 10 years ago, showing the people of East Timor voting in their first national elections. East Timor was and still now a poverty stricken country. But what struck me is the hopeful faces of the voters who were clutching their voter's certificates. East Timor has had a history of, colonialism, violence, neglect and betrayal worse than what the Philippines had. And yet the citizens of this young nation were hopeful.

We are not as young as East Timor but still we have problems. Can we be as hopeful still as the East Timorese?

Comments

Simoun's lamp has been lit, finally.. not by one but by the many!

"So often have we been haunted by the spectre of subversion which, with some fostering, has come to be a positive and real being, whose very name steals our serenity and makes us commit the greatest blunders... If before the reality, instead of changing the fear of one is increased, and the confusion of the other is exacerbated, then they must be left in the hands of time..." Dr Jose Rizal "To the Filipino People and their Government" Jose Rizal dominates the Luneta, which is sacred to the Philippine nation as a place of martyrdom. And many perhaps all of those executed in the Luneta, with the exception of the three Filipino secular priests martyred in 1872, have read Rizal's El Filibusterismo . Dr Rizal's second novel is a darker and more sinister one that its prequel but has much significance across the century and more after it was published for it preaches the need for revolution with caveats, which are when the time is right and who will in...

Kung bakit dapat maging wikang pambansa din ang Ingles

Isang kakatwang eksena ang nasaksihan ko sa isang pribabdong opisina kamakailan lang. Dalawang empleyado ang inatasang bigyan ng solusyon ang isang isyu tungkol sa logistics. Ang isa ang tubong Davao at ang isa ay taga Iloilo. Ang unang wika nila ay Cebuano (Bisaya) at Hiligaynon (Ilonggo). Ang dalawang wika ay halos pareho ngunit may mga katagang iba ang kahulugan sa isa't isang wika. Ginamit nila ang wika nilang kinalakihan at hindi sila nagkaintindihan. Ang nangyari tuloy ay gumamit na lang sila ng wikang Ingles! Yung na nga rin ang sabi ko. Mag-English na lang kaya kayo! At bakit di wikang Filipino ang ginamit nila? Sa totoo lang, marami pa rin ang hindi bihasa sa Filipino upang gamitin ito sa mga larangan tulad ng logistics. At hindi lamang sa mga larangang teknikal, sa mga biyahe ko sa ibat-ibat lugar sa Pilipinas, ang mga naka-paskel sa mga CR o palikuran tungkol sa pagtitipid ng tubig ay naka sulat sa 1)Wika ng rehiyon 2) Wikang Ingles 3) at minsa'y sa wikang Filipino S...

Leonard Co (1953-2010), Filipino botanist

With much sadness and shock I learned from WWF chair Lory Tan that internationally renowned botanist Leonard Co was killed together with a guide and a forest ranger last Monday, 15 November in a firefight in Leyte between Armed Forces of the Philippines soldiers and Communist guerrillas. As the Philippine Daily Inquirer reports it , Co and his researchers were surveying a forest plot of the Energy Development Corporation (EDC) for native Philippine trees and plants especially those that are in danger of extinction, like this Rafflesia flower (the picture I got from Dr Julie Barcelona's blog . Thank you Julie) The 41 year old Communist insurgency has again claimed another life of the best and brightest of the Philippines. In Leonard Co's case, a bright life that cannot be replaced. For he was one of if not the last of the classically trained botanists in plant taxonomy and systematics in the Philippines. While one can learn the basics of these disciplines i...

blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

Search This Blog