Elections: check.

Two days ago I stood under the unforgiving sun for almost four hours, waiting my turn to mark the ballot and have my finger stained with indelible ink.

I've found that registering to vote has been more cataclysmic in my life than turning eighteen was, that suddenly I've been thrust into a world that had all sorts of things hidden from the politically inactive citizens (i.e. me last elections).

It's the first time, stupidly and brazenly (although not the first time to be stupid and brazen), that a country has attempted to switch from fully manual to fully automated with zero transition, and entered election period with thousands of glitches "guaranteed" to work smoothly come election day itself.

Didn't happen. Of course not.

So I stood outside for a few hours in a crowd with lines you could barely distinguish, delayed further by the breakdown of our PCOS machine, stressed by the discovery that we would be filling out our ballots and those would merely be watched by Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting personnel (some of whom have admitted to not wanting to be there, not "supposed to have volunteered" at all--scary thought) and processed later on. When I got in I waited another hour to receive my ballot, snapped and fought with my brother out of hungerexhaustionimpatience and sat down to have some people trying to peek what I was marking out.

I had my ballot rejected twice, turned it every which way and had it accepted on the third try, then a nun dabbed a little ink on my finger.

It was like a, "Congratulations, you've just gone through your first ever elections. How does it feel?"

Not light. There was pride involved, but there was a lot of fear, a lot of apprehension, and a lot of expectation for disappointment.

As of now, results haven't come out. My president is winning, but my vice president is neck to neck with his rival.

I voted out of an obligation, not a belief that my vote would make a difference. I wish I were optimistic, but it's so difficult. So many people died just trying to fight for clean elections, to fight for a chance to change the way politics is run. But nothing's changed.

All I have is a little ball of hope, flickering candlelight that everything will right itself. Maybe not in my lifetime, but I'm going to start heading in that direction. So I'll keep voting, keep hoping that having what looks like a dead fingernail for two weeks will be meaningful, eventually.

Lupang hinirang o hinarang, minamahal pa rin kita.