Kurt Xendrich Thaniel A.

Tin
11832541
GEMATMW – EE1
Shortest Path and Social Choice Theory to Eat Lunch
A bus carrying the De La Salle University Men’s football team is moving across Metro
Manila after a game. Having won their match against the Ateneo de Manila Men’s football team
two to one, the team wanted to celebrate by having dinner in Mama Love’s, a Filipino
restaurant. The thing is, there are many ways to get there. The bus driver recalls several routes
that travels straight to Mama Love’s but does not know the fastest way to get there. Seemingly,
there is no traffic at all during that day. The bus driver checks his GPS, and sees that he starts
in area D. He sees all possible routes right before him, and asks the students to figure out the
shortest path to get there in kilometers.

The routes seem scrambled, and there are many, many ways to get to Mama Love’s.
Within seconds though, a Japanese engineering student spots the shortest possible path. This
path is D → C → J → I → E → Mama Love’s. Adding the sums brings 0.25 + 0.05 + 0.45 + 2.00
= 2.75 kilometers. With this problem resolved, the team goes on their way towards Mama
Love’s.
The DLSU Men’s football team find’s themselves within Mama Loves. Apparently, a dilemma
develops. Coincidently, Mama Love’s had just organized a bundle promo. From four iconic
Filipino dishes, the team must decide on two dishes to serve as a bundle. These dishes include:
  Pork Sisig (S)
 Beef Tapa (T)
 Bulalo (B)
 Lechon Kawali (L)
The players ranked their order of preferences from 1 to 4, which 1 being the most preferred
food. The results are shown below.
Table 1: DLSU Men’s Football Team’s Preferred Foods

3 1 4 3 2 4 1 2 2 2 2 3 1
S 4 4 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 3 1 4
T 3 1 1 3 4 4 4 3 4 3 4 2 3
B 1 2 3 1 1 3 3 4 2 2 1 4 2
L 2 3 4 4 3 1 2 2 3 4 2 3 1

There are several types of voting methods to determine which two foods will be picked.
Not all will be used for this example. The methods used for example will be the plurality method
and the Borda Count method.
Plurality Method
Plurality method is used to grant the candidate with the most 1st place votes as the
winner. Plurality method will be slightly modified here, accepting the food with the second most
1st place votes. Plurality method is likely not a rational voting system for this type, but we should
consider that football players are not likely to calculate Borda Counts in their heads or pull out
some pen and paper to calculate such, so they will use the quickest and simplest voting method
possible.
Pork Sisig – 10 first place votes
Beef Tapa – 5 first place votes
Bulalo – 10 first place votes
Lechon Kawali – 5 first place votes
Pork sisig and bulalo seems to be favored the most in terms of first place votes, but the second,
third, and fourth place voting does not look relevant to such a plurality method. A Borda count
will be displayed to make better use of the other votes.

Borda Count
First place votes get three points, second place votes get two points, third place votes get one
point, and fourth place points get zero points.
Pork Sisig – (Ten first place votes * 3) + (Thirteen second place votes * 2) + (Two third
place votes * 1) = 30 + 26 + 2 = 58 points
Beef Tapa – (Five first place votes * 3) + (Three second place votes * 2) + (Eleven third place
votes * 1) = 15 + 6 + 11 = 32 points
Bulalo – (Ten first place votes * 3) + (Six second place votes * 2) + (Nine third place votes
* 1) = 30 + 12 + 9 = 51 points
Lechon Kawali – (Five first place votes * 3) + (Eight second place votes * 2) + (Eight third place
votes * 1) = 10 + 16 + 8 = 32 points

Results are similar compared with the plurality method; pork sisig and bulalo prevail as the most
desired food choice around. Despite utilizing the other votes, beef tapa and lechon kawali
remains less desired. The players got to eat their lunch, but not everybody got what they
preferred.