It will soon be over, but…

Indeed, the busy schedule that I pointed out in the first entries for this year’s coverage has really reared its ugly head, which explains the lack of entries for the past two days. In those days, aside from trying to get things done, I was also trying to, finally, decide who to vote for.

It has taken so long, isn’t it? I’ve been talking to party candidates and supporters who have been watching the polls for the past two days, and I’ve somehow found the questions on whether I should vote repetitive. I’ve always said I’m voting today – because I really haven’t made a decision on crucial slots in the executive board – yet people keep on asking me to vote. My candidate-friends, even, have been (jokingly, I believe) dragging me to the voting area, but with no luck.

It’s somewhat ironic, really. The way the campaign has gone, the people that are supposed to fully understand the issues being presented by both campaigns are not going to vote. As of yesterday, turnout for students of FAST 2005 – the CLA’s junior batch, which I am part of – has been hovering at around 30%. With thesis deadlines for some departments already set for today, it doesn’t seem to be going up any sooner, unless we see a surge today. And I haven’t seen the younger batches vote, or I just wasn’t there to see it.

The perils of decision-making

As for me, after extensively covering (and getting too immersed in) the campaigns, I’ve had a hard time thinking. Maybe you could blame me and my attempts to be very non-partisan, weighing credentials and platforms. That fact has been a convenient excuse whenever one of the candidates I’ve interviewed asks me about voting – a fact that I found weird, because even those from the lower batches have asked me that question.

Yes, I still had problems making sense of the campaigns. The four-day class week, coupled with a virtually shorter campaign period, meant that parties didn’t get to do as many RTRs as usual. In some cases, RTRs from the respective executive boards have been denied entry into classrooms because we’re catching up with the lessons. Surprisingly, even if I had closer contact with the Santugon executive board – two of their candidates, Nadia Ong and Sarah Santos, were classmates in previous terms – I never got my questions answered. I texted Nadia one night, and didn’t get a reply. Two days later, she told me she sent a three-part text message, which somehow got lost in the post.

Someone from Santugon answered my question, nevertheless. How exactly will they target purported Student Council partisanship? Simple enough, he said: “include everyone in the process.” This credible source, who requested anonymity, admits that sending the message across could provide hitches, especially to students who are basically clueless about the internal affairs of the Student Council. I thought I had an idea of what they meant, but not really – but he says elected officers go through this more.

He compared this election to the Democratic presidential campaign in the United States to put it simply. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are in a virtual tie for the party nomination, and eventually it would go down to the superdelegates for each state to vote for either of the two. “Sino ang ire-represent ng mga superdelegates?” he asked me. “Kung for Hillary sila, kunwari, tapos yung state nila is for Obama, iboboto ba nila si Hillary kahit iba yung sinasabi ng constituents nila?“

So, basically, the approach that Santugon wants – as samey as it may sound – is to finally represent the students in the Student Council by making sure everybody gets a say in the decision-making process. As The Lasallian’s election special pointed out, the yellows have been running a campaign that appeals to the emotional side of the voters, and this could get them to victory. As I see it, it doesn’t seem to be the case everywhere, with some voters still thinking they’re out to bash the current Tapat-dominated Student Council, but, of course, I’m talking about a handful of CLA students. We can never tell about the entire university itself.

No reservations

Probably the simplest way for one to reserve the closest spot to the polling is to hoard on art paper with the party’s colors in it, and just place them on top of desks and other pertinent places. Yesterday, along the Yuchengco lobby, where voting for the CBE and COS is held, I saw yellow and blue paper placed on top of two benches near the amphitheater. A third had the ubiquitous Tapat “mascot” – Tigger wearing their shirt.

At the Miguel Walk, where CLA candidates situate themselves to watch the polls, reservation has been quite straightforward. Two days ago, the yellow “speak no evil” shirts, done as a response to Jun Lozada’s surfacing as a witness in the NBN contract investigation, were placed in some spots, as a placeholder. That day, Santugon people got the benches closer to the actual voting area. Yesterday, it flipped around, and Tapat got the slots.

Yet it’s, again, a thankful respite from what probably is the most aggressive and intense campaign period I’ve seen. Despite the party colors, they’re slowly revealing friendships that exist before the whole thing began. The mood seems relaxed, but still anxious, as voter numbers seem bleak and the possibility of having them wear party colors for a yet extended period of time gets them cringing. As Carlo Cruz, Santugon’s candidate for FAST 2005 Legislative Assembly representative, put it, “I feel like a zombie.”

Nevertheless when one accuses the other of electioneering – already whittled down last year to not saying party catchphrases and direct pleas to vote for a certain candidate during the polls – it’s a war of who saw and heard right. I haven’t got details yet, but this breaks the already festive mood in the surroundings of the polling area at Miguel. That, or the psychology majors rushing to finish their thesis in time for today’s deadline.

Election specials

Yesterday also saw the release of the election specials of both The Lasallian and Ang Pahayagang Plaridel. Not surprisingly, it’s late in the afternoon, but in a span of twenty minutes, everybody in the polling areas have copied of both.

There was hope that the release of these would give that one final push for undecided students to go either straight or derecho – or vote, at the very least. Tapat’s Monica Escalona, FAST 2005 batch representative candidate, mentioned this to me a handful of times during the past two days, a thing which I countered by citing the I’ve-got-a-lot-to-do excuse I mentioned earlier.

But is there a bias in the coverage? Some might get the idea, especially with The Lasallian’s article following the Tapat campaign for an entire day. A disclaimer, prominently displayed before the article, said that Santugon declined a request from the publication to have a reporter follow their campaign. Some from the yellows nevertheless think it’s a bias, especially with the little surprise the article offers – the Tapat candidates, traditionally described as “forceful” in other arenas, have their campaign-related troubles, too.

Well, it’s not really a strange thing. Maybe this time Santugon’s campaign really put prominence in this regard, with their candidates being unwittingly imaged as victims of smear campaigns and rumors. For example, there’s Sarah Santos, activities vice president candidate, being described among the newer CBE students by some as one who failed some of her subjects. “They can call me incompetent to run the office,” she told me later, “but they can’t say the same for my grades. May transcript of records ako. Ipapakita ko sa kanila.“

But if the decision-making lies in what the candidates told the publications, then it can pose as a problem, too. Marisol Prieto, Santugon’s bet for CLA college assembly president, told me about how The Lasallian apparently cut a significant chunk of her response to one of their questions. “My vision, my platform, it wasn’t there,” she said. The response of Hugh Morris, her opponent from Tapat, was not taken out of context, she said. She has apparently filed a complaint with the publication. “Bbut they said they can’t do anything about it,” she relayed.

The Plaridel also isn’t safe from these criticisms, with Prieto saying she was asked a different question from Hugh, and she got misquoted alone the way.

But soon these will all be over, and the moment polls close tonight at 18.00, what they can all do is rest, reflect, and hope for the best. The ballots will be counted tomorrow morning, if all goes to plan, and before I ask for you, the student reading this, to vote, I’ll ask you to think over your decision deeply. The way the past two weeks have gone, a victory on one side will be its vindication in what probably is a very dirty and angry campaign, but if this gets in the way of your decision, then we might as well have them do it all over again.

Shale Campaigns 2008 has a thread at PinoyExchange. Click here to post your opinions and speculations on the coming elections. Also, click here to view all multimedia content related to this year’s campaigns at Fifth Year Holler.