Cebu - Elections

The day I arrived in the Philippines, was the day of the nation wide mid term elections. Politics are taken very seriously in the Philippines. People are passionate about who to vote for and there's four months of campaigning. Then there's all the murders...


Apparently, this year's vote has been very peacefully. It was so peaceful in fact, that the stock market has hit a ten year high, as has the peso. This is a fairly relative term. Despite being "peaceful" about 50 people have been killed in election related violence. If that's peaceful, remind me not to be hire if there's a violent election!

I started noticing a lot of people with blackened fingers. At first, I thought everyone must just be really bad with hammers and nails, but after the fifth person, I finally worked out what was going on. It turns out, that after a person votes, the index finger on their left hand is dipped in some pretty toxic ink. This prevents the person from voting again. Clever. It does mean everyone has black fingers for about a week though!

It's good to see such an interest in politics, but it's a shame so many people have to die to maintain these rights.