Cruz-Busto: Taking part in history

IF IT were not for my former boss, who is among the presidential candidates for this year's elections, I would not have queued for three hours to vote for him as well as for others running for different national and local posts. The heat was unbearable; we were like in a pugon oven being slowly roasted. In fact, the recent elections were dubbed as literally the hottest where close to a thousand people were reported to have suffered heat stroke and related ailments.

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It did not help even if we (me and my husband) and a lot of other voters were in our most comfortable get-up and armed with fans of different sizes in our hands. The heat was too much to bear which resulted in tempers flaring. We were all very vigilant with our lines because a lot of us had not taken our breakfast. It is like saying do not mess up with us who have not yet eaten and had been profusely sweating or else, you will be in for a fight.

We were off to the public school to vote early and in time for the opening of different precincts. We walked a mile before reaching the school and when we had arrived in the campus; there was no desk or booth for voters’ information. So we had to hop from one classroom to another, starting from the ground floor to the third. It was only after reaching the third floor that we found our names in the list of voters.

Finding our names in the list was not enough. We were told to line up to get a number then wait in a holding room designated for the cluster of precincts to which we belonged. The line seemed kilometric long for me because it started from a room all the way to the stairs. Being the OC that I am, I asked my husband to time the entire process -- from the time we found our names in the list to the time we had completed voting itself.

I would not want to dwell so much on our experience in lining up because it was hell and I pitied ourselves so much -- sweat running down our bodies and faces, shirts drenched, and hungry. It was only when we reached the holding room that we were able to heave a sigh of relief because of the ceiling fans.

After three hours, our numbers were finally called. We rushed to the teachers and hoped to finish the process as soon as possible. We pointed to our names with our pictures in the list to the teachers, after which we were given ballots. Since we have already listed down the candidates that we would vote for, it only took us a minute or two to accomplish the ballots. We headed to the machine and prayed that our ballots would not get invalidated. True enough, it did not. It was another relief for us as we could now head for home after having our thumb marks for the list and the indelible ink on our "pointer" fingers.

Voting itself was amazingly swift but the process like affirming one's name in the list, getting the thumb mark and putting indelible ink still needed some polishing from the teachers themselves. They do not ask for identification cards from voters (although the list comes with the voters’ pictures) as they do not also look at the voters, thus, they could not be too sure the people voting are indeed those in the list.

The teachers have also no way of monitoring who is done with voting for them to get and give the voter's thumb marks and indelible ink, respectively. Instead, they will ask the voters if they have already voted. These glitches should not be overlooked the next time elections are held to make the process smooth sailing. Also, booths and desks for voters at every entrances of polling areas must be put up to make verifications easier and confusion avoided.

After all the apprehensions and fears for a failed election, I felt proud that there are still some things that we can do right. Overall, I must say, I am glad to have taken part in the electoral process after more than a decade of not participating in such.

As for my presidential candidate, he may not have won the elections but if there is victory in his running, it was, as his wife would say, his changing the political landscape of the country where he engaged cleanly in his quest for the presidency -- no mudslinging, only clean politics.