E-day!

It’s E-day or E for election that we are going to have today all over the country. Since we are having the country’s first-ever attempt to automate our electoral process, “E” could also stand for the “electronic” system that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) will use for the first time to count, transmit and canvass the results of the national and local polls.

Aside from the fact that this is the first nationwide automated election that we are going to have, there are many other “first’s” taking place simultaneously today. This is the first time that we are seeing a sitting President as among the local candidates running for a seat in Congress. Likewise, we have a former President making a comeback bid at Malacañang Palace after his six-year term in office was cut short by the EDSA-2 People Power Revolution.

The focus of everyone is on the presidential race among the nine candidates vying to become the country’s next leader for the next six years. But the sidelights of today’s elections are definitely on the congressional race in the second district of Pampanga where President Arroyo is running for Congress. She has taken over from her son Mikey Arroyo’s congressional district for the right to represent their hometown in Lubao, Pampanga.

Over the weekend, the Comelec junked with finality the disqualification petition filed against Mikey as a nominee of the party-list group Ang Galing Pinoy (AGP). That removed the obstacle to Mikey’s coming back to Congress, though through the back door as party-list representative. Contrary to claims of his detractors, Mikey pointed out AGP is a multi-sectoral party-list group and not just representing security guards as marginalized and under-represented sectors of society.

Another presidential son, Mikey’s younger brother, Dato Arroyo has also earlier hurdled obstacle to his own re-election bid in Congress. He is running under the newly created congressional district in Camarines Sur that they in Congress approved into law last year. The Supreme Court had recently junked the petition that questioned the validity and constitutionality of this law that created the new congressional district.

While we are discarding the old, tedious manual voting and counting that are more prone to cheating and fraud in favor of modernized election system in our country, we are, however, having more of the same in terms of candidates that we are going to elect into office.

I am one of the 50 million registered Filipino voters who are going to troop to our respective polling precincts to participate in this historic automated election system that we are going to use from now on. Definitely, I would join the early birds to cast my vote to avoid the long queues.

For sure, the summer heat and intensity of these elections will be felt all over the place. I’m just a bit worried, though, if the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines could absorb the extreme temperature or it might cause it to malfunction. Many of these polling precincts are located in public schools and these places do not have any air-conditioners. Some better off public schools have electric fans, though. So aside from valid identification cards (like voters’ ID, driver’s license, passport), we voters ought to bring also with us bottled water to avoid heat stroke.

Before we go to the polling precincts, we must likewise prepare ourselves for this “high-tech” electoral exercise. Just like any first-time event, there will be the usual birth pains that may cause troubles here and there. For the technologically-challenged voters, a brush up on the “do’s” and “don’ts” would help lessen such troubles to erupt.

Thankfullly, there are civic and election watchdog groups—spearheaded by the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), who are conducting voters’ education and information drive that fill in the gap left unattended by the Comelec. True to its advocacy, the PPCRV has mobilized its volunteers all over the country, trained and prepared them for the E-day today as the accredited citizens’ arm poll-watch group of the Comelec. The Catholic Church-backed PPCRV is headed by our former Philippine ambassador to Vatican, Henrietta “Tita” De Villa.

For the past two Sundays, the PPCRV chapter in our parish put up assistance desks where resident registered voters could check their polling precinct. In this way, voters could go directly to their respective polling precincts without having to look for their names. That is one step less of the process that voters — especially first time voters — would have to go through.

We saw a visibly relieved De Villa on television news after top officials of the Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM jointly announced having solved the problem of malfunctioning flash memory cards of the PCOS machines last week. “If there is one good thing that has come out of this, it (malfunction) has been detected, it can be solved and it was solved,” De Villa pointed out. A devoted Catholic church group leader, De Villa, however, reminded all the PPCRV volunteers to live up to their sworn duties to “watch, pray and report” any attempt to thwart the true will of the Filipino voters.

Let me share with you the PPCRV-issued “10 Commandments of Responsible Voting.”

1. Thou shalt vote according to the dictate of your conscience

2. Thou shalt respect the decision of others in choosing their candidates

3. Thou shalt seek to know moral integrity, capabilities and other personal qualities of the candidate you vote

4. Thou shalt strive to understand the issues, platforms and programs of candidates and parties seeking your vote

5. Thou shalt not sell your vote

6. Thou shalt not vote for candidates using guns, goons and gold

7. Thou shalt not vote for candidates with records of graft and corruption and Human Rights Violation

8. Thou shalt not vote for candidates just because of “utang na loob,” personal appearance, popularity or pakiksama

9. Thou shalt not vote for candidates living an immoral life

10. Thou shalt put the welfare of the country above all else in choosing the candidates you vote for.

So we are all ready now to go to our polling precincts for the E-day!