Vote 2013

When I was a kid my Dad stressed out that we had to vote. I became a registered voter when I was just 15 years old so I could participate in the Sangguniang Kabataan elections. I wasn't able to vote though in the 1992 elections because I was still underage. Even so my Dad encouraged me to be a participative citizen. Before I became a full-fledged voter I had already experienced being a PPCRV volunteer and a pollwatcher.

In the last few years though my health hasn't allowed me to volunteer to help out with the elections so I had to find new ways of being participative. In 2010, me and Google-engineer friend, Dan Delima, came up with the app Find Your Precinct. I thought that the clustering of 280,000 precincts to just 80,000 was going to create confusion among voters. And this held true as I saw a lot of disgruntled voters in 2010 who didn't know that their precinct location changed.

I pushed to get out of medical leave so I could help run the project again and I'm really happy that we had 30 precinct mapUps across the country in the last 3 weeks. This also allowed citizens to participate in the elections and potentially help millions of voters who need help to locate their precincts. [To all those who volunteered thank you for the bottom of my newly repaired heart!] Google Philippines also came out with an elections page which helped me check the list of candidates in the national and local elections (I didn't like the thought of scouting for flyers or going to the barangay hall to check the list).

My precinct a day before.

It's still early, please go out and vote! If you aren't registered then maybe you can help map more precincts by going to http://www.findyourprecinct.ph!

[BTW, thank you to the DepEd teachers, our community doctor (Dr. Guzman), and neighbors for assisting me so I didn't have to line up to vote. The heat was really awful and could've spelled disaster for me.]

The Mark of a Good Citizen

I just came back from the precinct to vote. I haven't missed a vote since I registered xx years ago (you think I'd give that out? LOL). And looking back I think I must've gone through 2 presidential elections already - the ones I voted for unfortunately lost, but that doesn't mean I'll change and go for the popular votes. I'll still vote for whoever is qualified for office, one who deserves it and whose programs I think make sense.

Growing up with a Dad who's a lawyer, I was exposed at an early age to these things and he stressed the fact that we should vote. My parents used to wake me up really early in the morning to be at the precinct at 7 in the morning. They didn't do that today, I guess because they know that they don't need to prod me anymore to get myself to the precinct.

And it's your responsibility to help bring good officials to office. You can rant all you want about not getting good service, corruption or whatever, but it is your responsibility to exercise your right and vote. And that's why I brought Miguel with me to the precinct because I want him to grow up to be a good citizen.

Oh, I'm keeping my choices a secret, mind you I was a nerd at it and did some research before finalizing my list :)