MANILA, Philippines—For first-time voters in 2010, Election Day can’t come soon enough.

Throngs of students at the University of Santo Tomas participated on Tuesday in the voters' registration and awareness drive organized by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and poll watchdogs Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel).

Shylar Palomares, a 17-year-old UST sophomore, talked about her excitement to vote in May 2010, but not for the “presidentiables.”

“It will be my first time to vote in 2010. It's important for us to exercise our right to vote. For those running for president, I'm not that excited, but at least there will be new choices,” she said.

Angelo Acasue, another UST sophomore, patiently queued and filled up Comelec forms along with his friends at the launch of a voters' registration drive called "Bagong Bida (Be the change) Botanteng Pilipino Magpalista Ka."

Acasue said he too was excited to choose a new leader to replace President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and hoped more students and first-time voters would go to the polls in 2010.

Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said they expected around three million first-time voters to register for the elections. "Three million is huge. The change is positive. The change is good. These three million voters are good for the future of this country," he said.

If youth voters were to turn up on Election Day, they could become a major voting bloc and propel somebody to Malacañang, said Henrietta de Villa, chair of Namfrel and PPCRV.

“It's a very good sign if we could have three million new registrants. Hopefully, this will set off a tide of change in the electoral process and the quality of elections in 2010,” she added.

UST Rector Fr. Rolando dela Rosa said young voters would be the key to change in governance.

He expressed hopes that the prospect of having new leaders in 2010 would ignite the youth's political enthusiasm, which had been “clobbered” by graft and corruption, poverty, violence, and election controversies.

“Let us tell ourselves—enough is enough. What the country needs are voters with an enlightened will, citizens who will not sacrifice their conscience for convenience, and who will not exchange their principles for monetary gain,” he said.