Good job, Pilipinas!
The general agreement is that the last few days have been beyond pivotal. Aside from Miley Cyrus outing her inner slut (finally!), the Philippines held its first automated national elections. For a chronically underperforming nation such as ours, the relative orderliness of the process is something to be proud of. That we managed to move one step closer to genuine change — and survived doing so in this ridiculous heat — is like gleefully flipping the bird at ignorant asshats who think we still live in trees. Those trees are now broadband-enabled, thank you very much. Most of the time.
But perhaps the most peculiar thing that took place this week was not that the PCOS machines worked, but that the much-hyped contraption — imagine a garbage bin mating with a paper shredder — has a Twitter account. Brought to my attention by fellow Supreme columnist Jan Ong, that detail proved that Pinoys can and do use wit to lighten tension-filled situations. I wish I had thought of it first.
It was clear that the TV networks also saw the polls as the ultimate opportunity to highside their new toys. Reminiscent of the technology used during last year’s US presidential race, holograms rendered splitscreens obsolete, replacing the latter as the more convenient way to generate news-related memes. If you thought a CNN interview with an apparition of Will.I.Am was epic, how about GMA’s Mel Tiangco interacting with a translucent Manny Pacquiao, boxer-turned-congressman-elect of Sarangani? Forget fancy touch-screen equipment. This is the future of broadcasting — and it will make you shake and cry.
The new system has made tallying votes way quicker, too. Just a few years ago, overworked public school teachers would scribble results by hand, upping the chances of human error. Now, they’re still overworked (and grossly underpaid), but at least their job is done in hours instead of days. Shady candidates and other forces of evil have fewer chances to rig results as the Comelec makes them known almost instantly. So, this is what being in step with the rest of the world feels like.
Speaking of election results, did you ever think you’d live to see the day when losing candidates concede and actually be sincere — I say that with hooked fingers — about it? Save for a few who choose to cling to the wreckage of their convictions, most non-winners have been pretty sportsman-like in admitting their defeat. It gives me hope that maybe, progress is finally on the horizon for our wildly messed-up archipelago. It’s up to our newly chosen leaders to turn this post-election optimism into something lasting and tangible. It’s a given that they need our help.
I don’t know about you, but from my experience, the period preceding and immediately following an occasion such as this brings out the poll trolls. They’re the annoying drama queens who sing a rather familiar refrain: “If so-and-so wins, I’ll leave the country.” Oddly enough, so many people say this yet so few have made good on their proclamation. I’m mature enough — cough — to realize that it’s rhetorical, but still: Erap has come and gone and lost weight, and sort of come back again and you’re still here. Seriousness fails.
Now, I’m neither expressing fandom for the new batch of Philippine officials nor am I hostile to their unproven leadership. The only way we can move forward is if we all roll up our sleeves and work at building upon the hard-won gains of our democracy. We’ve gone through nearly a decade of hell so the only way to go is up, right? Unless what Hollywood and the Mayans said about 2012 is true, of course.
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