God Bless Democracy!

I've been wondering, over the past few days, why there's a noticeable lack of fish available in the market, and many shops have run out of supplies of Tanduay rum and Kulafu, that disgusting Chinese medical wine the locals drink when they want to get seriously plastered for next to no cost.
A baffling mystery, but now the reason is revealed.
Today is Election Day, for local barangay officials, and the voters, paid off by the candidates, don't need to work for a couple of days, so they're all sitting around, getting pissed.

Wonderful thing, democracy, isn't it?

Update: 31/10/07 - All Hallows Eve (of which more, later)
The elections are over, and several surprising candidates have made it.

Yok-Yok, of the Totong family, is now Barangay Kapitan of Purok 3 (my parish). The Totong, a close-knit family, would be, almost anywhere else in the world, the local gang/terror squad, but they are as honest and upstanding as anyone I've ever known.
Ansing runs my boat, Matugas helped me see off my irritating do-good neighbour who ran a highly-intrusive local kids' hip-hop dance group. (I don't know if you like hip-hop 'music' but if you do, you'll get as irritated as I was after 6-times-daily repetition of the same goddamned routine every single day for six months. And Yok-Yok is a natural fixer (of electrical goods as well as elections).

Jaime Rusillon, the late great Ex-Mayor of GL, is now Barangay Kapitan of Purok 4. You cannot help but admire a 65 year old man, who, after ruling the town with an iron and very constructive fist, for a quarter-century, suffered a devastating defeat, and then comes back, fighting up through the ranks. I'll be backing his comeback.