THE price of being a registered voter is not all status, power, or prestige. It's mostly a waste. Just recently, I went under one of the most hellish experience in my entire eighteen years when I performed my obligation to my beloved country.

I, along with just some 300 registrants, went through an agonizing 12 and a half hours waiting for our numbers to be called during the last week of registration.

For updates from around the country, follow Sun.Star on Twitter

It is true many would say these people should have registered earlier to avoid the overwhelming number of registrants but then that is not the point. The point is this overwhelming population was already expected but still no appropriate preparation was made by the government to sustain the smooth flow of these registrants.

The weak registration system employed by the government was clear since the beginning of the entire process. The 300 registrants lined up for almost two hours under the scorching heat of the sun on the first step just to get their forms stapled.

The registration officers didn't even care to check or look at the forms. Had we known that was it, we would have brought our own stapler and saved a lot of time.

The second step of the registration process wasn't as measly though as the registrants lined up for another two hours to get their precinct number. But, it could have been better if the precinct numbers were posted on numerous areas so that the registrants themselves could have written their own for themselves and again saved even more time.

It was the last step of the process that really bogged every registrant as they had to endure more than six hours waiting in line to get their photos and biometrics taken.

The catch here is that the Comelec officers were only given one computer to encode everything. That's a ratio of 1 computer: 300 registrants.

And another thing, those 300 registrants were just the first batch. Another batch of 300 had to go through the same process with more pressure as the registration strictly ends 9 pm.

One can't avoid to think this way: it is a waste to register just for a single vote that isn't even sure to change an entire political system.

*****

Sunday Essays are articles written by students of Ateneo de Davao University for their basic journalism class.