i am woman, hear me rawr!

When I got up to vote yesterday, I had only a handful of candidates in my list that I was completely convinced of voting for. The rest of my list was filled up with other senatoriables that I deemed worthy, but was still somewhat iffy about them. Nonetheless, I worked hard at coming up with a complete list.

Let me back track a bit, however, and share with you my initial insights about the first ever automated elections. Prior to d-day, I was getting frustrated at all the glitches and hoopla being caused by this change of system. I also hated the way it was being reported that people might not be able to shade the circles etc. I was like: come on, let’s give our citizen’s some credit, right?

Anyways, today showed me that we can actually adapt to change. At least changes in technology. Yes there were things that went wrong, but it was bearable. Or so I’d like to believe. As for me, I arrived at my polling precinct at 11:40 am, which was the multipurpose hall of our village. I immediately found my name on the voter’s list and approached the table where the PPCRV were sitting and I was given a small slip of paper which contained my data and my clustered precinct number. Unfortunately, as the kind volunteer pointed out, I belonged to the largest clustered precinct in our area. There were three clustered precincts in our area and like the volunteer pointed out, mine had the longest lines. My companions were clustered in another precinct and they finished the whole process in about 1.5 hours, but for me, my tita and I ended up in line for over 4 hours.

Today the elections are over. Sadly, majority of those who I voted for in the senatorial race did not make it. I’m really sad about the fact that Adel Tamano didn’t make it. As I said in a past post, he was one of my sure bets for the elections.

At the end of the day, despite my four hour effort, two attempts to feed my ballot to the PCOS machine (it spat it out first!!!) and a last minute vote change due to some ungentlemanly behavior I observed while in line, I am really glad and honored to have been part of the first ever Philippine automated elections.

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Up to now (and much to my solid Noynoy tita’s dismay) I have not yet made up my mind 100%  about which presidentiable to vote for. However, one that I have decided to vote for is Adel Tamano. Granted I am not the most well-versed about platforms and capabilities, but from my perspective, he has what it takes to do something useful in our government. Honestly, prior to a chance discovery I made while I was doing my research for my article on parenting a child with special needs. My editors had informed me that the Senatoriable had a son with autism and that may be something I can include in my article. So from the link I was sent, I found a new Adel Tamano. Prior to this I had sworn off voting for him because of his involvement with the infamous Dra. Vicki Belo. His being ‘the new face’ of Belo didn’t help either. All that managed to do for  was lose sight of who he may really be.

However, in the course of my exploration, I had to admire his candor about his son’s condition. In a tweet, he shared about how proud he was of his son who despite a diagnosis of autism,  is beating the odds. I love how he so openly tweeted this, and that it wasn’t being done as an election strategy or what not, despite it working that way for me. The fact that he is open about it and talks freely about it makes me admire him. There are many other popular figures who can be advocates for mental health issues and such conditions but they are not ready to do so.

I hope that if he wins he can use his post as an avenue for autism (and other mental health issues) awareness. Sometimes I feel that people in power are not doing anything about the situation because they simply just don’t realize how greatly lives are impacted by these issues. This year, my vote for senator will go to Adel Tamayo. I just hope I don’t regret it someday.

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