Three hundred voters per precinct is a manageable number to the poll staff as opposed to some 996 or so voters in one cluster last May 10, 2010. In the past, the flow of 300 voters coming in between 7AM and 3PM was smooth and barely required wait time for next voter. A precinct could seat more than five people with a very good distance from each other. The staff’s instructions were clear and structured. You knew where to proceed next. During the first automated election however, people were pushing and shoving like passengers to a jeepney not wanting to miss a ride. Although some did not appreciate that there were priority numbers given, others understood it was done to manage a crowd who all wanted to vote and go home as early as it was before. Once your number is called, you feel lucky that you are ahead of hundreds of others outside who are still waiting for their number to be called. The room where we voted was fully-packed with more or less 20 voters at the same time; you could smell the shoes of the next one who is filling in his ballot. A polling clerk’s attention was divided by the number of people she had to attend to all at once. She was about to place indelible ink to a registered voter’s finger when she hasn’t not voted yet but took the wrong line because instructions were not relayed to those who just came in. It was past 9pm for some of those who were patient to still cast their votes. Others who were assigned big numbers have either gone home and decided not to vote or lost their suffrage because when they came back, the polling place was already close. The PCOS machines were fewer than the number of ballot boxes before and must tally votes of a thousand to justify that it is cost-efficient. While there were PCOS that did not work, voters were reassured that the votes will be counted in using another working PCOS machine. What took months of counting took only a week to finish and declare national victors. Locally, like that of a mayoralty position, the automated count was fast and the winner was declared almost instantaneously.
May 16, 2010
July 12, 2009
In for a Steam
A lodge of smoke,
to make me choke;
From heated stone
Poured water on.
A cold rub helps,
but my heart yelps:
Lantana
When I passed by this shrub and asked what it is, I was told it’s a kanding-kanding. I passed by it the second time and a different person said it’s an iring-iring. =D.
Stranger’s Dog
Call on a Dog,
just like a hog.
It wags it’s Tail
instead of wail.
Looks to my eye,
as though I’m Sly—
Am I Friend?
And not a Fiend?
Feel of Tired Hands
Lights dimmed, music—
some acoustic…
Then the masseuse coughs!
Tingling powder,
Smell of camphor…
Then the masseuse sniffs!
‘ these presages?
The massages
from tie-erred hands—
Hands though in heat,
July 10, 2009
Ma’am, I will give you a book.
What do I need a book for? I’m sorry, Mr. Salesman.
Please give me a scooter, instead, because I am in a hurry to get to where I want to….
I do not need a book while I commute on fast mass transportation, either…
And now that I am where I should be…I can sit back and relax…
and W-A-I-T like it has not been several hours of wait!!!
I have started to notice my Seiko ticking. I could have been in the middle of something!
Of a television show…Of a snack…
than stuck here counting off the 999,999th tick
and sit still waiting.
I wish someone would at least give me a book.
June 29, 2009
Lady Betty’s Name
Two rounds, she’d push a cart
full of tart;
Shakes and delight
for the Workers’ heart,
For those times they’d catch her.
Two rounds, down the lower floors
she’d push,
Supposed by those
June 27, 2009
Recurrent Dream
We have moved out of the house where we stayed for twenty years; It was those years when Spiderman has not yet revealed himself to Jane and the push-button phones have not yet replaced the rotary ones… The old house continues to haunt my dreams…I realize that when things from today and yesterday get mixed up. These dreams end with me looking at page of a calendar hung on the wall after I ask the people present in my dreams, what year it is.
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