The Voter’s Finger

No I’m not giving you the finger. I’m just showing you my indelible ink-stained index finger that proves that I just voted for this year’s elections. In the Philippines, the elections will be held on May 8, but for OFWs we have one whole month to vote – April 10 to May 10. The embassy actually modified their schedule to accommodate this. They normally open from Sundays to Thursdays but they changed it to Mondays to Fridays for non-voting related transactions and everyday for voting, with the weekends especially reserved for voting only, as they know that most OFWs can only do so on those days.

So Yves, Betchie, Arlyn and I chose to cast our votes today. Since I didn’t know who the candidates were, I was thankful when Betchie emailed a file summarizing the profiles of all national candidates which I saved here. It’s very informative as it lists their educational background, public service experiences and accomplishments. I prepared my list of candidates based on that file.

When we got to the embassy, there were surprisingly few people there. We showed our passports and IC’s and signed on a form before we were given a slip of paper with our precinct number on it. Inside the precinct, a girl asked for identification then asked me to sign on another form beside a copy of my IC. Then a guy handed me a huge ballot – it was like 3 bondpapers long – and explained how to vote. He explained that I had to shade inside the oval beside the candidate’s name and I could undervote but not overvote or that will render my votes for that category as void. That means only or less than one president, one vice president, twelve senators and one party list. When I sat down, I talked to Betchie, and a guy explained that we were not allowed to talk. Oookay. Why does this remind me of school?

After I was done voting, the guy told me to flip over my ballot and feed it into a machine where it will get counted and stored, I suppose. This year is different from previous elections because for the first time, the vote counting would be automated, hence the shading. Before this year, we had to write down the names on a small piece of paper. After the machine validated my ballot, I went back to the girl who took my IC and she asked me to put my thumbprint on the form and then stained my finger with the indelible ink. I had forgotten about this part. Eeps. I’m sure I’ll get a lot of questions from Singaporeans about my dirty finger.

Philippine elections bring to mind a lot of memories. How as kids, my neighbors and I would walk to the precinct near us and gather bunches of election flyers strewn on the ground and use them as play money. How when I was in college, I volunteered to be part of the “bantay boto crew” for Namfrel and we had to stay overnight at that same precinct as the votes were being counted. As each vote was called out from each ballot, I wrote them down in stick figures on the papers strewn on the floor. That same night, instead of sleeping at dawn after we were done counting, I texted nonstop when my load was going zero and the next day, I could still text and text and text – my sim could text unlimited for free, thanks to a fluke of Smart network. And then there was my first time to vote, back in 2004. In our family, each one of us chose different presidentiables to vote for. Haha. That was my last time to vote, too, before now, of course. I was too lazy to register in Makati when I was working there. Oops. Or maybe I just didn’t want to stain my finger. LOL.