When people talk about voter education, they’re mostly referring to things like criteria for choosing candidates, or what to look out for in campaigns, or how to vote using the optical mark readers (OMRs) recently procured by the Commission on Elections (Comelec). All of that is right, of course, but it only grazes the surface of voter education.
Voter education means, among other things, inculcating in the regular citizen—who might or might not be a voter—a comprehensive understanding of how the different working parts of an electoral exercise fit together. The purpose of this knowledge sharing is not to create election experts, of course, but simply to make comprehension of how the electoral system works an integral part of every adult citizen’s knowledge base.
A fundamental part of that knowledge base is the electoral calendar. In its generic sense, the term electoral calendar refers to the schedule of various pre-election activities that need to take place before elections are held. These activities are spread out over a period of several months and, without exception, each of them trigger very specific consequences. Just as an example, the start of the election period will automatically invalidate all permits to carry, making the transport of firearms and other deadlly weapons illegal, unless with Comelec consent. Gun owners will understand.
In other words, the milestones that are included in the electoral calendar affect nearly everyone in the country, even if their connection to the electoral process is not immediately apparent. This is why knowledge and understanding of the electoral calendar is a fundamental part of voter education.
Which brings me to the electoral calendar of the Philippines: the Calendar of Activities for the 2016 National and Local Elections have recently been promulgated by the Comelec and can be downloaded at https://electionsphl.com/electioncalendar.
Just to emphasize how important it is for everyone to be well-informed about this calendar, let me run through a few of its more salient dates.
Take the holding of political conventions by political parties to select and nominate official candidates for all elective positions, for instance. This activity is allowed only during the period of September 12 to 30, 2015. This is followed later by the filing of Certificates of Candidacy for all elective positions, from October 12 to 16.
Up to now, you can look at the various moves being undertaken by political parties and candidates-to-be, as a kind of testing of the political waters. But when they start holding conventions and all that, that’s when things get real. For candidates and political parties, this will most likely signal the start of massive fund-raising. For voters, this period will hopefully make you think very seriously about whether you’re going to vote for people who have actually declared their candidacy but continue to flout campaign rules—and, let’s face it, the most basic rules of decency and fair play—just because they can.
Incidentally, remember that the words “Vote for Me,” or “For (insert title here)” don’t have to appear on the promotional materials for them to be considered campaign propaganda.
The calendar is also very important to people who haven’t even registered yet, particularly those who will be voting overseas. Local voters already know—or ought to—that the deadline for voter registration is on October 31. Filipinos who will be voting overseas, or who used to vote overseas, have two additional dates to consider:
First, they have to know that October 12, 2015 is the last day for filing applications for transfer of registration records from the overseas to the local registry. This means that if Juan, a person currently living or working overseas, knows that he will be back in the Philippines by May 6, 2016, he has until October 12 to file an application for transfer with the embassy or consulate exercising jurisdiction over him.
On the other hand, if the overseas Filipino is just transferring from the jurisdiction of one embassy or consulate to another, or simply moving from one residence to another within the same country or within the jurisdiction of the same embassy or consulate, then he has until October 31 to do just that. So, if Juanita is transferring from Hong Kong to Berlin; or if Pepe is moving from, for example, Daly City to Mission, then they both have until the end of October to get their registrations sorted out.
And, second, overseas voters have to note that on December 1, the commission will announce the specific mode of voting that will apply in a particular country where overseas Filipino voting will be conducted. Hong Kong and Singapore, for the last two elections, have had personal voting using the automated election system. In some countries, mail voting is used. On the first day of December this year, the Comelec will announce what’s what.
There’s much more information contained in the Calendar of Activities than I have space for here. So, if you’re interested in being a well-informed voter—as well you should be—then I strongly recommend downloading and reading it now.