Brewed Thoughts: Election 2010 outtakes

Welcome to hell hole, where everything is turbo-broiled.

Today didn't start out right for me. For one, I was dragged out of bed early because my dad didn't want to meet the huge crowd of voters, not to mention that I forgot to bring an ID (went back home for that) fan, water or anything that would help pass the time while waiting in line at Precinct 3210B in Tandang Sora Elementary School. Needless to say, I went to battle without proper ammo. Good thing I didn't flip my lid and went hysterical.

We arrived at past 7AM and there were already huge throngs of people looking for their precincts. Good thing we checked out our precinct numbers online so we didn't have to elbow our way through the sweat-drenched crowd.

Sucks to not know your precinct number beforehand. Good luck battling this horde of people.

Anyway, I got stub #60, which kinda sucked because at the time when I got to my precinct, they were just running #3 in line. I thought that I'd be spending half the day just queuing for my turn, but luckily, the line moved okay. I just took my time snapping photos around & marinating in my own sweat.

Even if you do know your precinct number, you still got to battle the hordes to get your number in the master list.

Finally, my turn came. It was really weird to see the my name in the registration list without the picture when I saw my mom's name & pic just above me (we all registered at the same time during the last election). I sat on a rather small chair that accommodated half my ass.

Miriam greets you at this precinct cluster.

I voted for Bayani's Dick, or rather, the Transformers tandem. I only voted for only 5 senators, no mayor & vice mayor and just 3 councilors. No use filling up all slots with the crappy choices we have anyway. Good thing the PCOS machine in my precinct didn't fall to shit.

You can't take pics of official ballots...so they say.

I accompanied my mom later this morning for her turn to vote. She initially wanted to pass because her name didn't appear in the online precinct finder (which was another case of weird shit since we all registered together), but due to a stroke of luck, she was in the same precinct as I was.

Good job to these guys for keeping cool despite the heat.

When we got there, we were #300+ & they were just serving #180. No way did we want to stay in such a humid (not to mention armpit-smelling) environment, so I had to act fast: I told the BEI people that my mother had a heart problem & is not advised to stay in hot places. Ok, before anyone gets the bad idea, my mom can really have headaches & all that stuff in really hot weather conditions, so I wasn't exactly telling a lie. I just told her to act convincingly so we'd get this over & done with.

And yeah, we did get away with it. LOL.

Mom (in peach colored top) gets away with it.

Nonetheless, I just have to give credit to the BEI people in my precinct who were really nice & courteous even when sweaty people were already snapping at them. It's not an easy job, but they still did it. I mean, it would be understandable if everybody else were in a sour mood in this heat, but these guys were the epitome of cool.

Congratulations! You've elected another idiot for the next 6 years!

All in all, it was a strange experience. If I were to suggest some things, it would probably be the following:

Make the lines move a bit faster. Seriously. Nobody would want to stay any longer than 5 minutes outside in this godawful heat.
Have more BEI people stationed in a precinct to make sure the line is in order & that other queries are being answered instead of everybody flocking at the door entrance & blocking the goddamn way.
Whoever wins in this election ought to put proper ventilation system in public schools. This heat will be the death of all of us.

I'm crossing my fingers that the Transformers team will win. Win or lose, I just hope the next President will do a better job than the last.