Fiesta Time During Elections
It was a great time for the people to have these elections. Many people were employed to distribute pamphlets, many restaurants were booked to host “mitin de avances“. Companies were set up to print tarpaulins, signages, leaflets. Of course, we know about people being bribed to vote for their candidates. The going rate in Pangasinan was P300. The going rate in Manila was higher, P500 per person, and P10,000 per family for the really desperate candidate.
Since Husband was a local politician, I found ourselves being the recipient of many campaign posters. Initially, I felt aversion to putting them up. But as my emotions started to favor one candidate over another, I decided to throw in the towel and plaster the posters up. They found spaces in the gates of the buildings we were renting out. (I did ask the Building Managers to ask permission from the tenants. After all, they lived there.) Then at both sides of the van. Hey! putting up the poster at the side of the van filtered out the sun light. So now, I am going to need to put another material once I need to put away the posters. Perhaps I can have the picture of my grandchildren made and these would be nice posters. The grand children’s pictures are already posted in the buildings. Why not in my van? Fortunately, mine are such good looking grand children!!! As my mother would say, “improvement of the race!” specially when our children married people of another race.
The streets were filled with buntings of the candidates. If you didn’t know better, these were buntings for fiestas. So it brought a lot of cheer to the streets. Above is the picture of one such street in Marikina.
Wearing Yellow
As I said, Husband works for the lowest political level, the Barangay. He was roped in in the campaign. He would wear a yellow blazer/jacket over a yellow t-shirt. He would disappear after a quick dinner, and he would sit with the candidates on the stage platforms set up for the campaign. Husband is a cerebral guy. He doesn’t go for the usual activities that local officials go for– wine, women and song. He prefers to go for esoteric things like planning for development, and during this time, he fought to bring Voter’s education to the masses. He told the Mayor, “You got to fund my Voter’s Education project. How can you win, when the voters will not know how to vote for you?” This year, the country went into digital voting, so it was necessary to teach people how to vote with these new machines. That got the Mayor’s ear, and Husband focused on this aspect of the election. Later, other people and groups caught on to the importance of Voter’s Education, and more classes were organized.
It was election day today, and Husband woke up at 5:30 a.m. He had to bring breakfast to the poll watchers. Yesterday, Sunday, I had to call my plumber and electrician from their Sunday rest. Husband saw that the School where the voting was going to place didn’t have a flush toilet, and no water. So the plumber had to install connections. Husband bought two pails, one for the men’s room, and the other for the ladies’ room. One lady came up to complain that her partner who had to man the other toilet didn’t show up, so she was busy flushing both toilets with the pails. And the bell that would sound the start and end of the elections was not connected. So the electrician had to connect that.
It took me 1 1/2 hour to vote. The lines were long because there were not enough teachers to do the signing, putting of thumb mark to signify finishing the voting, etc.
After I got home, I felt very tired. I slept the whole day, only stopping to eat lunch at 2 p.m., then back to bed. I haven’t done this for a long time, so I just let it all hang out. Husband was in and out of the house, to use the toilet, and to take money. He said he had to feed the poll workers lunch and snacks.
It is now 8:06 p.m. and the polls have closed. So tomorrow, we will know the trends of who will run this country in the coming years.
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