In preparation for the synchronized Baranggay (Town) and Sangguniang Kabataan (Youth Council) Elections in October, COMELEC, opened a special registration from July 15-22. Why does that have anything to do with me? Well... I have just realized that I have a civic duty on this city that has been home to me for the past four years. The last election I participated in was the 1998 presidential election. We all know how that turned out and I lost interest in the electoral system.So there I was, somewhat excited about officially being a citizen of Makati City by being a registered voter. I went to the COMELEC office in Makati but what I saw made my heart sink (refer to photo.) What you are seeing in the photo is not even half of the number of the people there since the COMELEC office IS ON THE SECOND FLOOR and there is more on the other side of the building. One particular middle aged guy was telling us that some of the people was already there as early as 5AM, apparently, the COMELEC is only going to accommodate 200 of the lot. Cutting the long story short... I got up and went off to blog about it. It could have been a lot easier (and faster) if they set the registration at each baranggay. Then they wouldn't need the whole week. Citizenship will have to wait 'till after the October election when regular registration resumes. My fault, really. I should have registered last year. Tweet this!
http://nerdluck.blogspot.com/2007/07/better-luck-next-time.html?showComment=1184836140000#c5209792448202795251'> 5:09 PM
The sight of such crowd is absolutely discouraging. Why can't the COMELEC come up with a better system?
http://nerdluck.blogspot.com/2007/07/better-luck-next-time.html?showComment=1184858220000#c7316098085648894637'> 11:17 PM
I was thinking the exact same thing, Sir. They are supposed to be the "experts" on these situations. Could it be that we really are this helpless that any other solution would be worse off? I found out later today that those we came in with in the morning only got registered at around 6PM. God help us.