Pinoy, 9 pa dinukot sa Nigeria

Last May 10, East Timorese trooped to polling stations to elect their new president to replace outgoing president Xanana Gusmao. Although the post has been hotly contested, the poorest country in Asia managed to conduct an electoral exercise far better than the Philippines.

The day following the election, Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta emerged the winner over Francisco Gutteres, the charismatic revolutionary leader who was behind the armed struggle aimed at freeing East Timor, the region's newest nation, from the clutches of Indonesian oppression many decades ago.

But what amazes the foreign observers was the fact that East Timorese managed to conduct a clean and efficient election considering their fledgling democracy. With virtually no untoward incident related to the election recorded, East Timorese have shown the world that they have reached electoral maturity despite the civil unrest sweeping across the country that threatened to ruin their fragile democratic foundation.

Four days after the East Timorese election, it was the Philippines' turn to conduct its own electoral exercise. And, as usual, what drew the attention of the international community was the persistent flaw in the country's electoral process that has already cost countless lives.

Elections in the Philippines do come with a string of violence ever since the Marcosian tyranny snuffed off every Filipino's democratic way of life, including his right to suffrage. It's a sad fact that Filipinos, who used to be the vanguard of democracy in Southeast Asia, continue to grapple with the electoral glitches that have been besetting them for decades.    

While East Timorese try to conduct electoral exercises with an unblemished record, we Filipinos have remained inutile in our effort to pursue eventual political and electoral maturity. This is because our leaders never simply have the will to religiously pursue political and electoral reforms.

We do not have to take the recent election in the neighboring country as an example of a successful electoral exercise. What we should do is think over those gruesome election-related killings sweeping across the country to consider that we are indeed heading for the road to perdition.