Philippine's First PCOS Experience

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It was my first time (every Filipino's first time actually) to participate in an automated election. I felt excited and anxious at the same time about it. Excited because of the new technology. Anxious because of the possibility of having a failure of election.

Thanks God for the successful first automated election in the country. Although there were several PCOS (Precinct Count Optical Scan) machines that malfunctioned and the canvass didn't finish as immediately as expected, there are no major reports of violence or protests so far. (I hope that the violence rate in this year's election would be a lot lesser than in the elections in the past.) Most importantly, there wasn't any incident of brown-out or black-out anywhere. Whew!

Thanks to my oldest sister who went to our precinct early in the morning to get our numbers (voters should get a number first and wait for their turn to vote). So, we spent like just almost 15-20 minutes to end the entire process when we went in our respective precincts that afternoon - falling in line, writing down our signatures, giving our thumb marks, shading our ballot, entering the ballot in the PCOS machine and having that indelible ink on our index finger.

Honestly speaking, at midnight of the election day, May 10, I had this last-minute dilemma of whom to vote between two presidentiables. (Sigh) But, I managed to make up my mind.

indelible ink on my index finger, ink on my thumb and my voter's ID

At this very moment, the election is already over. But, the votes are still being counted. However, some newly elected local officers (such as Mayors) were already proclaimed in their respective areas. As of 3:49 today, 88.69% of the total Election Returns have already been transmitted (from gmanews.tv). A new Philippine president will be proclaimed soon.

So how was your vote? Are the candidates you voted in the lead? If not, what is your reaction right now?....Election is over....now, what's next? What should be our response if our personal choices didn't win? What should be our response to the newly elected leaders of our nation? What should be our role in this new government leadership?....

READ MORE. by Mariah of A Woman With a Mission.