Ep. 119: The Philippine National Elections Are Coming Up

Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at hiring and working with your OFS in the Philippines. This is episode 119. The Philippines national elections are coming up. So on May 9, 2022, which is Monday, I hope you hope you're listening to this before then. Philippines is holding a general election for the executive and legislative branches of the national and local governments, which means on May 9, they're electing a new president. And this is kind of, kind of a big deal. It's a big election in the Philippines. Let me tell you why President Marcos, Ferdinand Marcos was president of the Philippines. I don't know, a while ago. This is like in the 80s or the 70s, I don't know. And so he was really harsh and he was taken out by a revolution. And so like the Philippines has a holiday, which was recent about the revolution that kicked him out of the government. And so this election is a big deal because one of his grandchildren is now running for president and he's, he has a lot of people that like him and he's hoping to bring the Philippines back to the time of his grandfather, Ferdinand Marcos. And so one of the candidates for election is now like looking to take the Philippines back towards kind of a, kind of a dictatorship. And some of the older people liked how things were back then and the younger people aren't liking it. There's, It's a big deal. This election's a big deal. So on May 9, your OFS will probably also want the day off. And here's why. So election day is not a national holiday. It's not like a regular holiday day. However, it's often declared a special non working day because voting is difficult in the Philippines, precincts are open from 6am to 6pm, which seems like it's a lot, but for most people there, it's not enough time. That's not enough time to vote, given the commute to the polling places and the super long lines at polling places because of their inefficient process and the insufficient number of places to vote. So let me explain a little bit here in the US there's tons of places that can serve as a voting precinct, like schools, churches, private homes can serve as precincts if the government approves it. But in the Philippines, voting is done basically only in public schools. And schools will usually serve several precincts. On election day. They get thousands of people going to the same place and it causes traffic all over, it causes lines. It's hard. And then there's like how they handle the voting, which is you have to find your name on the voting records and your name might not be there because records aren't kept super well. And the Philippines does have early mail in voting, but it's only allowed for overseas workers, people who are overseas, they call them OFW overseas Filipino workers. So it's only allowed for them or for public people specifically teachers, police and medical personnel. And teachers then generally serve as police, polling workers and police, all police are on duty to keep the peace on this day. So there are very few people that are even allowed to vote early by mailing in their ballots. So everybody heads to the polls. So it's a big election day making worldwide news with the son of the former I think I said the grandson, it's the son of the former president Ferdinand Marcos running for election. So just kind of expect another day off from your team.