Today’s the day! Vote. And make sure your vote counts.

This is the reason why:

Should I vote for this guy?

In the book A World Waiting to be Born, M. Scott Peck recounted an incident in his childhood. Still young to be a Boy Scout, he got hold of a Boy Scout catalog, and he saw a hatchet, and fortunately for him, it was available even for non-scouts. So his parents bought him one on his birthday, and upon getting it, he raced to the woods nearby and chopped down a small tree. Of course, the chopping tired him, and only then he noticed a gash in one of his legs.

So he ran towards home, blood streaming from the leg, and a doctor was called. The gash merited stitches.

His description of the healing process is instructive. Majority of us thinks inflammation is bad. It is actually the body trying to hasten the cleanup process. A wound or a stitch may swell because fresh blood is being “streamed” into the damaged area to hasten the regeneration of cells. Also, this ensures that the white blood cells can do their work faster.

When there is inflammation, it is tender to touch but painful when pressed. Pain exists so that the inflammation will be left alone, the injured part will not be moved that much.

And here is the crux of this story.

We always associate pain with the negative. The truth is, pain is necessary because it alerts us that something is wrong with our body. Pain tells us that we have a disease. And knowing that there is something wrong, we act on it – we visit a doctor, we take medication, we take a rest.

The absence of pain is not necessarily a sign of good health. Lepers don’t feel physical pain, yet they are diseased.

That’s talking about physical pain.

Defense mechanisms exist as our ego’s way of preventing anxiety, or emotional/mental/psychological pain. They are healthy, but to some extent, they are not.

One example of such defense mechanism is denial. The Wikipedia entry is instructive, so I quote:

Denial is a defense mechanism in which a person is faced with a fact that is too painful to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence. The subject may deny the reality of the unpleasant fact altogether (simple denial), admit the fact but deny its seriousness (minimisation) or admit both the fact and seriousness but deny responsibility (transference).

I suggest you read the Wikipedia entry on denial.

We are in denial. We know something is wrong but we deny that it is serious. So much, in fact, that we have desensitized ourselves – we lost the capability to know what is wrong. We have been immuned to pain.

Thus, we do not know that we are diseased. Thus, we cannot act on the disease until it’s probably too late.

A lot of things are happening around us. Several days from now, we will be electing our leaders. I know some of us found it hard selecting who to vote; it is a painful experience. Some of us went through the pain, and will be better for it (hopefully). Some of us avoided the pain altogether and have decided not to vote.

Some of us are troubled by the spate of killings and sudden disappearances. Some of us made noise, made protests. Some of us chose not to think about it, because, after all, we have nothing to gain from it.

Some of us saw that something went wrong last 2004. Some protested. Some chose to “move on”.

We are diseased. Because we chose not to vote, we will have more of the same. Because we chose not to think about it, many more will die or disappear. Because we chose to “move on”, we will never move on beyond 2004.

We are diseased. And because we killed our capacity to feel pain, we cannot act on it. Or even if we do, it might probably too late.

Because I cannot vote – apparently.

Remember when Comelec had announced that it had purged around a million names in the Voter’s List? When I had read the news, I felt cold. I had feared that my name was stricken off.

Apparently, my fear is not unfounded.

Comelec has an online precint finder. So I entered the needed information:

Click image to view.

Here’s what I got:

Click image to view.

The irony is not lost to me. Here I am, convincing others to vote on Monday; here I am, not in the Comelec’s list of voters.

I know this is not final. Maybe there’s something wrong with the database (one friend also tried it and she got the same “not found” message; we both voted last 2004). I wish I had another way of checking (sent two SMS to ComelecTXT, no replies). I’ll know for sure on Monday.

Try for yourself and see if you find your precint. Let me know the results.

UPDATE (5/10/07):

Using that same Comelec Web form, I tried searching for my older brother’s precint (we always voted on the same precint), and voila, there’s an entry. Did that to my other two brothers, all returned positive. So there’s still a chance that I will get to vote.

What’s wrong with this news report?

‘Poll violence in Abra normal’

The Philippine Star

Abra’s police chief sees nothing abnormal about the province’s record of political killings, particularly during elections.

“It’s normal in Abra to have killings and it’s abnormal if there’s none,’’ Abra police chief Senior Supt. Alex Pumecha said. The Philippine National Police has deployed a special task force to restore order in Abra.

The latest political killings in the province took place last Friday when unidentified men killed in an ambush in Pang-oy, Lagayan town six relatives of congressional candidate and Lagayan Mayor Cecille Luna

The victims were Romero Guyang, barangay captain of Bai, Lagayan; Eduardo Guyang, Felima Caleflores, Jeson Battalao, Bali Rubeo and Darwin Sitnagen. Wounded were Lorenzo Guyang, Armenio Ayab and Roderick Guyang. The group had just left a wake on an SUV owned by Luna when waylaid by unidentified gunmen.

The ambush-slays came two days after the province’s four congressional candidates, Luna, Mailed Molina, Gov. Vicente Valera, and Gil Valera, vowed over radio program “Talakayan’’ not to resort to violence.

Luna accused Governor Valera as the one responsible for the killings.

“I am the real target and nobody would dare to do this to us except him (Valera),” said Luna, who earlier sued Valera for allegedly attempting to assassinate her.

But Pumecha said they have no suspect yet or evidence to link Valera to the ambush-slay.

“As of now we do not have the identities of the suspects and we are not linking anybody yet in the ambush because we are still investigating the incident, which is probably politically motivated,” Pumecha said.

The deteriorating peace and order situation in Abra ahead of the May 14 polls prompted the Commission on Elections to place the province under its control.

“The police task force is useless here because just about everybody wants to carry a gun. They believe there’s a chance for an amicable settlement for a crime, but you can’t negotiate with St. Peter once you’re dead,’’ a police official who declined to be named said. The killing of Abra Rep. Luis Bersamin outside Mount Carmel Church in Quezon City late last year was believed to be the first case of election-related violence involving Abra politicians. Myds Supnad and Jun Elias