making history

today, we can now be called the pioneers of the automated election, the first users of the pcos machines.

i woke up around seven today and went to my precinct at around 830am. since it was a new style of elections, i had to look for where my new precinct is located (while in the queue, i noticed that the building housing my precinct was now demolished), and was directed to the ground floor of the limbaga building at the quirino elementary school. when i arrived there, i had to fall in line in this very long queue. most of my fellow voters during that time were parents and it was really great talking to them. they may have not told me who they'll be voting for but their thoughts on this election, their reaction to this lady trying to cut in line (they made her go away), their hope for a better future made me think that yes, this is the thinking mass! these are the people you want to be with, the people who knows what our country needs, the people who are sincerely for change. as they said, i'll stand in line here even if it takes hours, even if it means i'll miss lunch because my vote will matter. i want to be counted. i want to have a better future.

at the end, we ended staying in line for about an hour, walking towards the only polling center for six precincts. distance walked was about 100-150 meters. imagine that. it took an hour though for us to get our ballots because the pcos machine from time to time had paper jam problems. when it was our turn at the machine, we got held up for about 15 minutes because again, the ballot got jammed. thankfully, the BEI and smartmatic people were able to fix it.

outside the school, it was chaos - not the violent type, though. trash, water bottles, sample ballots were scattered all over. good thing was there were assistance centers, a fire truck and police centers ready to help those who are in need.

***

today is also a special day because this is the first time my sister voted. as we have different polling precincts,
we had to look for her polling center. the last time i checked with comelec's precinct finder, it indicated that she would vote at the barangay hall but apparently, a comelec officially told her that it would be in don quintin elementary school (just beside quirino, my polling center) after her voting registration. we braved teh traffic and scatter of anonas street only to find out that her center is at claret, only a few blocks away from our apartment. we went there and then again, were told that this isn't her center but at the barangay hall. so if we should have believed the comelec's finder, we wouldn't have wasted money and wouldn't have suffered the scorching heat of the sun.

at the barangay center, we spent more time waiting in line than i did early in the morning. we were there around 130pm and ended going home around 430pm. in the middle of the election, the pcos machine broke down and they had to request for a new one. the bei and poll watchers decided that they would just go ahead and follow the back-up procedure -- take the ballots from the machine and secure it. the new ballots will be placed in the machine and will later be scanned by the bei themselves when the new machine comes in.

but before this, they tried restarting the machine and it worked (must have just felt the heat and wanted to rest). everybody got excited because the voting can resume but unfortunately, after just a few feeds, the machine broke down again and they had to finally resort to the manual voting.

my sister was excited to use the machine but she only got through it manually. however, it wasn't a waste because we know, her vote will be counted.