Elections and other festivities
Where are the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines?
Barely 4 months away from the much-awaited first automated elections in the Philippines and not all of the supposed 80,000 PCOS machines have arrived. We should be preparing for this like it is a major production ala Cecil B. DeMille’s “Moses”. The fact that the machines are coming in trickles should be enough for COMELEC to press the panic button.
Filipino time is not necessarily a thing to be proud of. We all know delays have dire consequences and being the first automated elections (an uncharted territory for the country) the poll body should even be more unforgiving of these setbacks. Murphy’s “What could go wrong will go wrong” should be the reason enough why everything, including PCOS machines should be in place way before they need to be used.
The delivery of the PCOS machines is only the beginning of the more rigorous task of testing them, loading the program, checking if everything works before they are accredited and shipped to various Comelec offices and polling precincts all over the country.
The delay is so uncomfortable we need time to familiarize ourselves with automated elections via longer engagement.
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And it’s not just the arrival of the PCOS machines that’s stalled. Teachers’ training which is supposed to be in full swing has not even commenced. Not all teachers are created tech savvy and it may take time for many of them to get acquainted with poll automation its abilities and mettle.
There’s a learning curve to poll automation and this needs a head start, not cramming as wisely recommended by a Comelec official who said teacher training was moved to a much later date (or to a date closer to the elections) to make sure teachers will not forget. COMELEC is wary teachers might lose much of the information if the trainings began way earlier.
This perhaps is the greatest insult to Filipino teachers heard this century. It is even more bile than anything Rosanna Roces can say in candor over Showtime against the country’s educators. Teachers may really take offense on this one.
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Representative Riza Hontiveros appeals to the people to vote for candidates that uphold women’s issues such as the Reproductive Health Bill.
The appeal came in the heels of guidelines released by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines Episcopal Commission on Family and Life urging voters to reject candidates supporting the Reproductive Health Bill.
The church is confident that its fold will vote according to the dictates of what is moral.
Hontiveros hopes voters will choose according to the dictates of their secular conscience or the one that considers the plight of women, mothers and children.
I am confident that Catholics will not vote as a bloc and will consider the merits of RHB beyond women, mothers and children.
I hope that in the grander scheme of things (as grand as RP population growth projected at 2.5% per year adding up to 94 million in 10 years) families must now think twice before adding more claimants to this country’s already scanty resources.
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I usually skip the January festivals especially during election season.
It is likely that January festivals such as Iloilo’s Dinagyang Festival, Cebu’s Sinulog or Kalibo’s Ati Atihan will be turned into an opportunity for either local or national candidates to campaign. Such a cunning intrusion will be in the form of parades or tribe sponsorships as festivals are part of the campaign trail.
Many complain that festivals have become “too commercialized” with the visible and intrusive participation of products and other marketing activities. On election year, festivals are highly politicized as they are commercial.
Personally I prefer my Ati-based festival in pure black but 2010 is such a year when in lieu of soot, an explosion of yellow, green, orange, blue and even pink could mar the revelry. So I pass.
Besides, the presence of political campaign in a festival is almost sacrilegious since more than just merry making, the January festivals pay homage to the Santo Nino in a very solemn devotion.
Thou shall not use the festival of God in vain.
