This means that the Commission on Election (COMELEC), the government agency tasked to carry out this law knew for a fact that after the National Election last May, the synchronized local election will also come late in October. Now that they knew about it, they should have done all the necessary preparations to make the synchronized local elections as timely, credible and organized as it should be all over the country. What happened today mirrors the incompetence of people from the COMELEC which resulted to the postponement of elections in more than one thousand seven hundred (1,700+) villages.
Two days prior to Election Day, the COMELEC has declared postponement on about five (5) municipalities in the north which were badly hit by typhoon Juan. Nothing unusual about it and it’s just a proper act to do considering the gravity of the damages in schools where polling will be done. Other than the predetermined area, the COMELEC has assured the Filipino people that the synchronized election will persist as scheduled. This was the same statement they issued in last night’s news. When I woke up today and saw the polling precincts at the elementary school like a ghost town at seven in the morning, I knew that people from the COMELEC must have woke up later than I did and were surprised to know that it’s election day today!
To cut the long morning wait short, the COMELEC representatives (teachers) came back from the town (municipality) with the election paraphernalia around twelve (12) noon already. The five (5) hour delay in the official start of casting our votes is so annoying for voters who still need to travel back to their places. It’s even more annoying to see our dear teachers (as part of COMELECs Board of Election Tellers) scramble the process of accommodating the voters to go inside the polling precinct and cast their votes. It took them about twenty (20) minutes per voter to handle the voting process. Meaning, a voter who is about to cast his|her vote should wait for the other voter who is about to drop his vote at the ballot box before her gets his|her official ballot.
I’m one of the few early voters in line at Precinct 56-A as early as 12:25 but I managed to cast my vote at around 1:35 in the afternoon. That’s more than an hour at the line on a rainy Monday afternoon outside the polling precinct and getting wet by the intermittent drip from the busted school roof. The turtle-like process movement was attributed by the BET to the absence of light inside the polling center but I simply won’t bite it! Just like the COMELEC, our teachers knew that their classrooms will be used for election today; they should have checked and fixed the lights for they will surely need those.
Despite the disappointing process, I found out we were still lucky to have casted our votes today. Our neighboring towns in CamSur were forced to re-scheduled their synchronized election for tomorrow. The reason being was primarily because of the delay in the arrival of election paraphernalia. Lucky or not, I still think we deserve a system something better than this. The Filipino people came out today READY to cast their votes. Unfortunately, the agency whose website tag says “protecting the sanctity of the ballots since 1940” didn’t live up to our expectations. If I have to give a grade to their performance, the COMELEC wouldn’t get anything higher than F. Today, the COMELEC failed the Filipino people.
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