Tuesday, May 15, 2007 Maxey: Abante, Pinoy By Ram Maxey Bar None
IN past elections, on the day of voting, I would make it a point after casting my ballot to drop by several public schools where voting was going on before I reported for work.
As a newspaperman, I have this insatiable curiosity to know how my fellow countrymen are conducting themselves while exercising their right of suffrage.
It was mid-morning yesterday as I made my way to the Buhangin Central Elementary School campus where several dozen precincts in a cluster of buildings were already abuzz with voters. There was calm in the air. Gone were the propaganda vehicles making the rounds, blaring out loud music interspersed with appeals over a loudspeaker to support certain candidates.
Monday was The Day of reckoning. Along the way I met people returning home after having cast their ballots. The old and the young as well as the in-between.
Outside the school's main gate a throng of people, including kids as young as eight, nine years were handing out sample ballots to those who cared to have them.
Overall, there was a semi-festive air. People were streaming in and out of the school premises, seemingly buoyed up by a feeling of self-importance and the realization that, every once in a while in their lives, they had this opportunity to perform a patriotic duty.
In one precinct there was a long line of voters waiting patiently, mostly in silence, for their turn to be part of history. It was an inspiring sight for a student of human behavior like me.
How I wished then that there were a foreign observer or two in the vicinity to see for themselves how Filipinos go about this serious business of electing their officials in a manner that is far from being an exception to the rule.
In a thousand communities similar scenes were replicated as millions of Filipinos trooped to the polls and voted without a hitch.
If there were "incidents" here and there that made the elections less than perfect, we can charge that to Murphy's Law. Anything that "can go wrong, will go wrong." But democracy in this country lurches on, regardless. I'm not giving up on my Motherland in spite of all the things that's wrong with her.
