EDITORIAL - "May itlog na hugis mongo"

The line “may bilog na hugis itlog” from the jingle used to promote awareness of last Monday’s first-ever automated polls may as well be changed to “may itlog na hugis mongo” based on voter experiences.

The constant repetition of “may bilog na hugis itlog” in reference to the oval shape that voters needed to completely shade in making their choices from the official ballot helped conjure up images of an egg, which in turn suggested something that was fairly sized.

But to the huge disappointment of voters, and to the great irritation of many, the “egg” turned out to be something that more resembled the size of a mongo seed. And because the red ink that outlined the shape was faint to the point of being pink, it was as hard as mongo to prick.

To those with fading eyesight and stiffening fingers, it became a real challenge just to land the marker pen tip on the very center of the small universe around which revolved the whole purpose of the political exercise.

Yet, it was never the intention of the Comelec to go mongo from egg. It was forced to in order to manage the incredible number of partylist organizations vying for recognition in a bowl of alphabet soup.

The list of partylist organizations ate up more than half of the entire ballot. If the Comelec were to make the oval shapes the size of lizard eggs to facilitate ease in finding and shading them, then the already two-foot-long ballot may reach an incredible four feet in length.

That would have made filling up the ballots more unwieldy than making people line up, in direct contravention of a trait deeply ingrained in a national character that knows scant method and discipline.

And so, in deference to misplaced dignity, as well as to save on paper length, the Comelec went from egg to mongo, and the rest is history, written in ink of blotted black, careful not to overlap the borders from which emerged the eventual yellow of destiny.

Nevertheless, some lesson awaits from the experience. The true measure of the partylist system lies not in the insertion of so many, but in the making certain of the veracity of those we let in. That done over with, maybe we can go from mongo back to egg in 2013.