Precinct No: 0164A – Bolbok Elementary School, Batangas City

I have the same precinct number/room as my mother. As I’ve mentioned here, we are 5 voters in my family. My two younger sisters are of the same room as well while my father is on a different one. We arrived at the school at around 7:00AM.

How does automated election worked here in our place? First, you get a numbered paper, fill it up with your name and voter’s number then wait for your name to be called. Mine is 78 and mom’s 64. They told us that it would be a batch of 20 per roll call. Unfortunately, when they were on the second batch, more and more people came in blocking the hallway. They then decided to disregard the number and just let the people in, randomly. I was outraged but I keep it to myself since we’re almost close to the doorsteps. Therefore, with or without number, I know that me and my mom will enter the classroom next.

But hell, we stood there for more than an hour not to mention that the people around us kept struggling to make their way to the front line. Imagine the inconvenience of discomfort of being in an overcrowded place.

Tic-tac-tic-tac and the line stood still. Voter were coming out of the room but no one was allowed to enter.

Yes, I’m just one step away but the line wasn’t moving so I had to bear with the extreme heat, my unvoiced frustration and the undisciplined voters. Well, I understand where they’re coming from because the assigned officials did not start it right. And when one of them ordered the crowd to move back, they remained still. The entire crowd hated them. Who won’t? If they had let the early comers fall in line and vote, the system will be more orderly. And I hate these crowd even more especially when they start pushing us toward the watchers and other officials in the front door. It was extremely excruciating to fall in line, rather, to be with these anger-driven people. Bodies kept bumping and squeezing with each other. And what made me jerk a little is that whoever b@stard who literally {squeezed|pinched|gripped|grasped} my ass! Oh gosh, and when I looked back, there I saw a man whom I wish was not the one who did it. Ewww. In heat, eh? Goodness, I know I’m hot but the situation did not call for it. Made me hot-tempered even more!

Finally I was inside so I took a photo of those by the door:

And now I knew why it was taking that long. There were only two personnel working on the master ist of voters, and just like in other areas, the ratio is 1:5 – 1 room is to five precincts since there was only one PCOS machine allotted for certain number of voters. Anyway, I got seated as soon as they handed my official ballot and started shading the circles.

Whoah! Seen my votes? NP. It’s OK. As if it will change the result.

After 3 hours, we’re finally home.

And that’s my memorable disgusting experience for this automated voting system.