2004 Presidential Elections
(God Help Us All)

Yesterday my mom woke me ridiculously early and dragged me--along with el papa--to the local public school to vote and to watch the polls.

Since I didn't register, my mother decided to that I should vouch for my civic duty by volunteering to watch the polls.

I was 17 during the last presidential elections which I missed that too, so it wasn't really a hardship to go sit in a room and stare at some people. The system is rather crude, but it sort of works. There are two assigned watchers on each precinct, and there are two precincts in a room. There are two watchers for each precincts, so there is absolutely no way that you can cheat--not even in the counting.

It's pretty hard to fudge the numbers when you have five pairs of eyes looking over your shoulder, neither can you sneak in a few ballots when you have me watching you.

I'm putting my money on Arroyo, since a lot of the people I watched voted for the incumbent, though this is just Manila. Rumor has it that FPJ is pretty strong at the grassroots...though that was before the whole bruhaha that he and his wife (pissing off the press)

I never once thought that the sample ballots that they gave away outside the school would work, but it turns out that a lot of Filipinos are block voters. You would think that with such a big decision you'd come up with a shopping list of your own, I only saw 1 out of maybe fifty who brought their own list or chose from the official list provided.

The system might have been archaic, but it was alright. The only form of cheating you could do is to copy your seatmates answer, and I hardly think that's the point.

There were one or two flying voters who the officials allowed to vote because of a technicality.

Okay, maybe i'm judging them, but the lack of credentials, the clear Class D look, and the FPJ Sample Ballot in their hands gave me an indication. One lady missing her front teeth was rather insulting. A vote these days can buy a nice set of teeth.

Depending on who you believe, Arroyo leads by about a thousand votes over FPJ. At least, according to NAMFREL. There's this other party--KMU, KML, KNP, The Professors of Doom--claim that it's the other way around: FPJ leads by a huge margin.

We still have about a week more to go before we announce the new president.

Depending on the outcome...we could see ourselves with a stronger peso or another EDSA Revolution. Either way, it's a party on the streets.