No more excuses

Starting yesterday until the end of this month, the Commission on Elections will still be accepting those who want to register to vote, whether they are first-time voters or those who were disenfranchised following failure to vote in two consecutive elections.

The decision to extend voter registration will have consequences, according to the commission. They earlier said they can only allow a week’s extension and no more since anything longer would affect their preparations for the next year’s polls.

There were also opinions against the extension, with some people reasoning that giving an extension only encourages tardiness and that those who have not registered until now appear to have no genuine interest at all in exercising their democratic right to vote.

However, the Senate and the House of Representatives hastily passed a bill extending voter registration until the end of the month, giving the commission no choice in the matter.

Whether or not the extension will indeed affect their preparation for the polls remains to be discovered.

How did we get here? To put it simply, some people dilly-dallied. Yes, we understand there is a pandemic going on until now, but haven’t we all learned to safely deal with it? Don’t we all already know what precautions to take in public spaces?

Those who haven’t registered had last year yet to put their name in the roster of qualified voters, surely they could have had a day free to do this between last year and yesterday.

Doing things at the 11th hour seems to be a bad habit of some Filipinos, if not most of us. We tend to put off doing something until the last day, hour, or even minute, and then have the gall to complain that we were not given enough time to accomplish the task.

Hopefully, those who did not register to vote will finally take the time to do so. After this extension they should have no more excuses.