Daily Bitekletas

Today is election day in the Philippines. I just thought of writing a simple guide when voting and securing your ballot.

1. Make a list of candidates whom you’re voting for.
   
2. Bring extra identification cards/Paper before going to the designated precinct.
3. Look at everyone’s doing, be a watcher yourself.
   
4. When filling up the official ballot, put an “X” mark or strike out empty lines. This will ensure that nobody can put names on those empty lines.
5. Make sure you write the complete name of the candidate you are voting for. Writing only the last name could invalidate your vote worst, cheater can add in a first name thereby using your ballot for cheating.
6. Indelible Ink should make a mark on your index finger for at least 2 days. Make sure that it really does. A lot of people have reported (with videos sent to ABS-CBN) demonstrating how easy it is to remove the indelible ink by using alcohol and a simple brush. This is against what has been specified by COMELEC ( law ). If you think that your precinct is using a substandard ink, make a complaint or inform the election officer of your precinct.

Big change starts in small ways. Don’t let money influence your vote. Keep the money but vote for those who are deserving leaders.

If you are a pinoy and will be participating in the 2007 National Election this May 14, 2007 - you may want to verify your precinct for convenience. This is a good move from the Commission on Election (COMELEC) in making the move to modernize some processes in the commission. Unfortunately though, I’m afraid that some of you may never get any result as I believe the is not as complete as it should be. In have no luck in finding my record. Oh well, it’s worth a try!

A word of caution, the site takes about 10 minutes to load on a decent DSL connection.

Inquirer.net’s Volt Contreras reports: More pork graft exposed - PCs at P217,500 each for Luzon IT projects

Of the seven IT projects monitored, six had PCs costing P217,500 each “even though their parts were unbranded” or could be had for much lower prices in the market.

What??? That’s just too much for a single PC! That’s about US$ 4,000 (USD 1 = PHP48.00 ). Wow! Pretty expensive machines for running MS Word and Excel don’t you think?