may 2010 elections: tago's score card

Hours before Tagon-ons went out of their homes to try their hands at the PCOS machine for the May 2010 elections, heaven was already leaking like hell. Still they went to their designated polling places by braving the heavy rains and queued for at least two hours while standing on murky, knee-deep waters.

When rains continued without let-up and people began going home with nary a blot of indelible ink on their index finger, candidates panicked: These people had already received “tili-tili,” what if, because of the hassle that comes with voting, they would just decide to stay at home and not vote?

The Comelec Report

For Tago, COMELEC reported 35 clustered precincts, 21,254 registered voters and 16,638 who actually voted. All these data say is that for every 10 Tagon-on voters, about eight had cast their ballot. Given the inclement weather on May 10, the 78.28% voter turnout is quite high and all because the electorates were curious about the PCOS machine and the new way of voting.

The mayoral race posted the lowest ballot spoilage at 3.29%, trailed by the congressional race at 4.37%. The vice-gubernatorial race posted the highest ballot spoilage at 15.84% followed by the vice-mayoral race at 10.19%.

A little digression: Under automated elections, the PCOS machine rejects the ballot in whole when the bar code is corrupted, the ballot’s crumpled, or the ink has bled. It rejects the ballot in part when a voter over-votes, meaning, instead of voting for only one candidate---as in the case of Mayor---he votes for two or three candidates. Should this happen, only the vote cast for Mayor gets voided while the rest of the entries in the ballot, assuming they’re correct, will be counted.

Moving on now. Spoiled votes in the mayoral and vice-mayoral races amount to 547 and 1,695. This 1,145 disparity reveals that more people erred in shading the name of their vice mayor than their mayor. Or that they had over-voted. What is interesting is that the chance of accidentally over-voting in the vice mayoral race was slim as it contained only two names and written in one line because of the “landscape” orientation of the ballot. Compare this with the mayoral race which had three names and written in two lines.

Could it be that some electorates voted for mayor but not for vice mayor?

The Tagon-ons, the Ballot and the PCOS Machine

Most Tagon-ons, including moi, hadn’t attended a PCOS briefing that Comelec conducted in all barangays and so they didn’t know that automation involved only canvassing and transmission but not filling out of ballots. And when Comelec conducted a mock election to test the PCOS machine days before May 10, this fear spiraled because almost all the participants said the special marker had the tendency to bleed out of the provided “itlog” that preceded the names of the candidates, and that their ballots were repeatedly rejected before the PCOS machine finally swallowed it.

Candidates gave out “tili-tili” stapled to a sample ballot that contained their name and their corresponding “itlog” and number in bigger and bolder print. The official ballot however had the names, “itlog,” and number written in smaller font and fading ink. And if one wasn’t careful enough, the ink would really bleed and taint the other “itlog,” thus spoiling that portion of the ballot.

Negotiating the ballot was particularly hard for senior citizens, what with their failing eyesight and shaking hands. Next time around, it’s best for them to request for assistance to save them a lot of trouble.

There was a sense of hesitation and palpable fear every time a voter approached the PCOS machine to feed his ballot. It just didn’t help that a teacher was around, ready to assist. But when the machine ate the ballot, the voter’s face lit up as though he were a cell phone receiving a text message.

Cold and dark, the PCOS machine inspired techno fear, especially for voters living under the rocks. But some decided to confront this fear by opting to feed the ballots themselves despite racing hearts and unsteady hands. Their reward came in seeing the word “Congratulations” blinking on the small screen!

Lessons Learned

Tagon-ons have realized that with automation, they could indeed vote for their choices and never be discovered, unlike before where “contra-senyas” tended to unmask them. They have also discovered that it’s now easier to vote as they only have to shade the “itlog” rather than write the names on the ballot and that it’s easier to remember the candidates with their assigned numbers than by their names.

Tagon-ons have also realized that it’s now quicker to canvass votes than before because by midnight, the winners were already known.

what to do on a holiday?

bake some banana bread, that's what!



this is called "humble banana bread." but its humility centers on cost, not on taste. it is so easy to prepare that even a quadruple amputee can do it in 30 minutes flat!

gemmadel l. medrano rocks!!!

when i got back from my summer class last night, japan texted me that i had some stuff from our girl high school batchmate who was once a US navy. i sent our helper to get them and boy, was i surprised...and happy!

thanks loads, gem!

before you start eating your heart out, please tell me: what will i do with my clinique-for-men stuff given by another california-based friend?

back to baking

while i finally went back to baking for my nephew's 17th birthday on april 27, i also discovered that my moulinex hand mixer needed some lovin'. still, i was able to make a nice choco custard cake.

experiencing paradise

As far as spelling goes, the old Bretania is dead. But from its ashes, the new Britania rises!

A morning after Easter, the gang was sharing food and laughs at Japan’s when someone said: “Why don’t we go to Britania?” And just like that, we did!

Japan borrowed a van whose fan belt was so loose it screamed. The only way you could hush it, the mechanic said, was by shutting off the air-conditioning system. And just like that, we did!

Part of the fun was enduring the oven hot interior because the windows wouldn’t open and we didn’t know until we were on our way home that there was a lift-off vent on the roof.

We picked up Tata and Nelson in Sumo-sumo. Felna wanted at first to come but decided she had had enough sunburn on her back and was better off playing with her neighbors who adored her Michigan twang.

We had lunch at the Sto. Nino diner. But all the seafood we were craving for were gone as it was already past one o’clock. And so Nelson just feasted on beef steak and balbacua.

We turned left at Salvacion junction. The tarp carrying some shots of the islands, the mayor, and a poorly conceived tagline dwarfed the waiting shed that now had gone sunken after the elevation had changed due to the concreting of the highway. As we entered Salvacion, I noticed nothing much had changed: the road remained narrow and unpaved; no signage to guide visitors and tourists.

After so much asking for direction, we exited Salvacion and turned right, toward Britania. The landscape turned rustic and the one-lane road was grassy and rugged. By the roadside, sun-browned kids trailed in single file, carrying either vegetable or jackfruit on their heads and fish on their hands; water buffalos sunbathed in mud wallows under slender trees while a few birds twitted rhythm and blues; the fresh smell of weeds threw me back to my childhood and I felt nostalgic.

Then we reached a forked road at the center of which were a tree and a mud puddle. Japan, who visited Britania a few days earlier, couldn’t say which one to take. The driver chose left and stopped to ask the woman balancing a basin of laundry on her head. She said we took the wrong turn.

Back at the forked road, we took a detour to the right. A few meters later, we could already see the turquoise water, the majestic islands and the white sand gleaming from the mid afternoon sun.

“Going to the island?” a man barked from the window, keeping pace with the van. We pulled over and got off to the fresh, cool air of Britania. The coco fronds swayed as though welcoming us.

The fishing village hadn’t changed. A few nipa huts there, a sari-sari store here. Outrigger boats dotted the shore; thin and dark children played around while their pregnant mothers sat on the rungs of a bamboo stair and raided each other’s head of lice; grimy, half-naked men drank tuba from the same glass.

Few meters from where we stood was an unfinished sea wall that served as jump-off point to Britania Islands. From afar I saw something new that wasn't there when I last visited Britania 10 years ago. There was a boardwalk that extended from the shore to the water by at least 100 meters. Some people were pacing its entire length while others were taking pictures. Inside the big shed by the boardwalk’s midsection, people were waiting for their boat to arrive. And near the shore, carpenters were busy building a similar shed.

Japan haggled with boatmen and settled for P800 which included whisking us off to the islands and back and watching our things. It was a bit expensive because it was quite late in the afternoon and almost all boats had already been commissioned for the day. (We were told that other times one could strike a deal for as low as P500.)

(A little disclosure: For those not used to taking an outrigger boat and don’t know how to swim, the trip to the islands could be scary especially that no life jacket is available.)

Nelson looked nonchalant but I knew he was as jittery as Elaine whose knuckles turned white from gripping the boat’s ridge. I told them not to worry because the boat had an outrigger, but should it capsize, to make sure to hold on to it and not let go. Besides, I said, boatmen are here to save us all. But still, when the motorboat roared to life, I thought I heard the fast beating of their hearts.

The boat made a path on the clearest water I had ever seen, so clear that we could see things underneath like we were looking through a giant aquarium. Fifteen minutes or so later, the boat hit fine sand. And that’s when we knew we had reached the magical island this side of Surigao del Sur.

Britania, in my book, is a paradise. And the thing with paradise is that there’s no way you can describe it. You only have to experience it.

Visit Britania. Experience paradise!


*************


at the sea wall. note the islands at the back.


during low tide, you can island-hop on foot like we did in this picture!


uprooting a rock to know what treasure lies beneath the fine sand.


too old to become mermaids?


how fine is the sand? think Goldilocks polvoron!




britania in full splendor!

brown outs and all things positive

A power crisis grips Mindanao, leaving in its wake billions of losses daily. In Tandag, power goes out twice daily, at 11:00-1:00 PM and 4:00-6:00 PM. (In Tago, power also goes out twice daily, at 1:00-4:00 PM and 8:00-10:00 PM.) And if your office is like mine whose processes are computer-dependent, everything stops.

But there are positive sides to a power outage. At my office, we now have longer time to share stories about relationships, triumphs, setbacks, milestones and breakthroughs. At home, we now have longer time to share a meal, a laugh, a dream. And with evenings draped in black, we now go out of the house to appreciate the cool evening air, the pale moon, the sequined sky.

Suddenly we’re bonding with our neighbors, indulge in small talks, laugh at simple things and romanticize those good old days. Suddenly we relearn the cathartic effect of simple storytelling that no teleserye could ever hope to match. Suddenly we re-experience the breathless thrill of chasing a shooting star with a foolish wish. Suddenly children realize the “inter-activeness” of pinoy games like kuding-kudingan, ik-ikan, tago tagu-an, and ibo. Suddenly it doesn’t matter anymore if we miss an episode of American Idol.

Thanks to brown outs, we realize we haven’t lost the creativity in making gadgets that don’t need sockets and batteries to work. Thanks to brown outs, we're back to making gas lamps that use an escosia Violin or Guitar as wick. Thanks to brown outs, we realize the beauty of simplicity, of reducing things to basic.

Sometimes it takes a power crisis to see things in a new light. Or in this case, old light. And so delight in it while it lasts.

meta editing

i've been writing long enough to form the discipline of editing myself scrupulously. and this because i believe in the masters when they say that revision is a sign of maturity, of finally grasping and realizing the true worth of one's creation.

was it mark twain who said that everybody can write, but not everybody can rewrite?

as a published writer, i respect editorial license. but there were rare times that i wondered what went on in the editor's mind. my article in the March 2010 issue of PAL's Mabuhay is a case in point.

I wrote: Bislig City's Tinuy-an Falls has such stunning visual appeal that the Department of Tourism tags it as the the country's widest and most amazing waterfalls. Its water is a canvas that captures cerulean skies, lush greens, and exotic blooms. Its flat rock formations are so well-stacked they might as well be the concert stage of nymphs and fairies.

The editor revised it this way: Bislig City's Tinuy-an Falls have such stunning visual appeal that the Department of Tourism tags them as the the country's widest and most amazing waterfalls. Its water is a canvas that captures cerulean skies, lush greens, and exotic blooms. Its flat rock formations are so well-stacked they might as well be the concert stage of nymphs and fairies.

the editor must've so much to edit that day he missed the inconsistencies in pronoun use.