The 'efficiency' of electronic cheating!

On the eve of his 25th year as a Cardinal, our beloved eminence Ricardo Cardinal Vidal thanked the volunteers of the C-Cimpel (Cebu-Citizens Involvement and Maturation in People’s Empowerment) and said that the last May 10 elections were peaceful and most efficient.” Of course the good Cardinal did not elaborate what he meant by “efficient” because now we all know, how “efficient” was the electronic cheating behind the May polls that no one can say that that the elections were honest and credible. Even the international observers say this. Mind you, even those who won their respective positions, like Cebu Gov. Gwen Garcia are waiting and raring to be called to the Congressional hearing on what really happened to the polls in Cebu.

We’ve bombarded the Comelec with a series of queries and they have responded to our queries with total silence. I know that whenever a columnist targets a group or personality, the best position to adopt is to ignore the writer… hoping that he will get tired and move to another subject. If we go by the Government’s Ethical Practices and Standards, we can actually file a case vs. the Comelec. But I’m not about to do that… I will continue throwing questions at them until their conscience tells them to answer our queries.

In all truth, I’m sick and tired of our political ways… that doesn’t lead to a real change. Though we all love this sick country called the Philippines we just cannot seem to get things done, while the rest of our neighbors have grown and developed faster than we could hope for. We’ve long psycho-analyzed ourselves as to what we ought to do to make this country finally solve its problems. I have always maintained that the biggest problem we face in this country is not poverty, poor education or even corruption. The biggest problem we face is that we just don’t solve whatever ails this nation!

It is for this reason why Filipinos go out to other countries to find work in foreign lands and I dare say that today, the ultimate dream of the ordinary Filipino is still to have that “not-so-easy-to-get” Green Card, even if in all honesty, the United States of America isn’t really a great place to find a job these days. But for as long as the long queues are visible at the US Embassy in Roxas Blvd, this is a clear and visible sign that things haven’t changed. Someday, I hope the queues would reverse, Americans lining up in Philippine embassies seeking to come to the Philippines. But we don’t expect this to happen not within the next six years.

Meanwhile, here’s another letter from Mr. Bobby Tordesillas.

“Hi Bobit… Many if not most of the people in our country are prepared to conclude that the latest and first automated election was generally honest particularly in the two highest posts in spite of the several complaints being hurled against the Comelec. And you know why? Because the entire country had been mind conditioned by the survey results.

The continuous publication and sensationalization of the survey results had brainwashed the Filipino people into who were the candidates most likely to win the Presidential and vice-presidential posts. So much so that when the results came out and they were consistent with the survey results, why, even I immediately accepted them as accurate. Even the candidates, Sen. Villar, Sec. Teodoro and Sen. Gordon also immediately conceded without even a second thought. In fact the LP camp pointed to the survey results as one proof that they had not cheated.”

And yet one question that continues to nag my mind is: Had the INC anoint former Pres. Estrada as its candidate, then that means Sen. Aquino would have lost 4 million votes and Erap would have gained the same number. And if that had happened, then Erap would be leading now instead of Noynoy. And if that had happened, then that would make the survey results inaccurate after all, surveys do not take into consideration command votes and bloc votes.

I have other questions on the accuracy of the survey but this is not really the point of my letter. The point of my letter is, if you were to rig the elections, would you make sure that the results would be consistent with the pre-election survey results? Of course you would, so that you would not arouse any suspicion. So who can one use the survey results as proof that there had been no cheating? Now with the many complaints of fraud all over the country, and since this, being our first automated election, I believe that the lawyers of all the Presidential and vice-presidential candidates should be allowed to scrutinize every certificate of canvass both electronically and manually.

In addition, I agree with moves to bring the 70,000 PCOS machines to Congress in case there is a need to manually count the votes. That is ultimately the only way to prove the true and accurate count. Bobby Tordesillas” I fully agree with this letter and may I suggest that we do a manual count in Cebu so that the proof of the cheating can be revealed even without a whistleblower, because I know that Jejomar Binay didn’t get that much in Cebu!

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