A day of reckoning: Election Day 'round the corner

Okay, this is me putting my money where my mouth is.

While the UK is waiting on the results of its general election, we here in the Philippines are gearing up for OUR polls, which will be taking place this coming Monday. I talked about the process of getting ready for the election in this post; now I'm going to talk about who I will be voting for.

*deep breath*

PRESIDENT: After several weeks of thinking about it and reading about all the candidates, their promises, their shortcomings, and pretty much everything all the various sorts of media put out about them, I've finally made my decision.

I'm going to abstain.

There is no one on that ballot right now who I would trust to lead my country.

VICE-PRESIDENT: Mar Roxas.

In my opinion (and I say that to make it clear that I think this way, and that everyone is free to disagree with it), if he had only decided to tell the Liberal Party that it would be wiser if they kept him on as their presidential candidate and then asked Noynoy Aquino to run as his veep, then I would have voted for their tandem - and I would even have volunteered in their campaign.

Since that's not what happened, I will content myself with voting for Roxas as VP.

SENATORS: Biazon, Drilon, Guingona, Inocencio, Lao, Osmena, Recto, and Roco.

I'm supposed to vote for 12 senators, but honestly, I do not want to return people like Revilla and Lapid and Estrada to that hall. Its reputation has been tarnished enough under their power-grabbing and -keeping ways. Can we have some new blood please?

PARTYLIST: AGHAM (the Filipino word for science).

If you seem confused by this, don't be. It's a means of getting the underrepresented sectors a chance at actually being represented in Congress.

And of all the organizations on that list - many of which are really dummy parties designed to help career politicians hold on to their power - this is the one I've picked. This country needs to have real scientists sit in Congress to help hammer out so many laws that could affect the environment, human rights, health. We need to inject the lawmaking body with a healthy dose of the scientific method.

***

With all the last-minute bugs and glitches bothering this country's first automated elections, I really hope nothing bad happens on Monday, let alone the next few weeks. I will, of course, keep you updated.