This week, I went to the Commission on Elections to register as a voter.  The last time I voted was in the 90’s, the one that eventually elected President Ramos.  I think I was still in college.  It was my first time to vote so I was quite excited.  Flashback to 14 or so years.  I left the country and missed out in all the political “circus” that happened for the last 14 or so years.  I was not there when Mr. Estrada was elected.  I am really sorry for missing out on what was happening back home.  I had no idea that there was such a thing as “Absentee Voting”.  Anyways, I was probably just apathetic.  Anyways, now that I am back and having reacquired my Filipino citizenship, I felt again excited to vote in the 2010 election.  It’s like being 18 again.

I went to the City Hall and ask around where I could register as a voter.  The Comelec office was right at the back of the older building which was in front of the new and shiny Municipal building.  I was hoping that I could just reactivate or transfer my registration but after failing to retrieve my records from their computer he just decided that I start with a new application.  He gave me 3 pages of application form which was actually 1 with 2 copies.  While filling up the form outside in a makeshift covered booth I saw that there were some information that I needed and I didn’t have it at that time (I needed the certificate number of my dual citizenship and the date reacquired).   I decided to just continue filling up the application at home.

The next day, I went back and submitted my form.   The officer told me to sign the form and give it to the second table.  After a few minutes, my name was called and I was asked to take my seat on what I would now call the high-tech zone.   I was impressed to see that now they have the new high-tech way of capturing fingerprints.  They now have biometric capturing devices and the form I filled up was re-entered by the other officer into their registration database.  It was all organized.  There were clear instructions posted: they had made labels for each fingers so that if the officer said 1,2,3  you know which fingers to press into the biometric reader.  After that I sat in front of him and he took a picture of me with a digital camera and they also captured my signature electronically.    After this, I was asked to photocopy my drivers license and include it with my application form submitted to the officer on the last table..  Overall, I spent around 30 minutes there.  I would have been totally impressed by now had he not said that my voters id will be available “anytime before the May 2010 elections”.  Huh!?