Bratty pols prefer political turmoil

Disgusted televiewers learned something big by switching channels from last week’s coverage of Congress’ joint session. The monkeys are more behaved in Animal Planet. In contrast, senators and congressmen can be, as one of them said, unruly and vacuous. Senators Ed Angara and Aquilino Pimentel opened the session with blabber that the old rules for canvassing presidential votes, which they themselves had instituted in 1992 and 1998, were prone to cheating. Their opposition partner Rep. Didagen Dilangalen followed up with crafty filibustering, thus earning the monicker Delaying-galen. At one point, he made a big fuss out of a little note, sent to him by a taxpayer from the gallery, to shut up and get on with the count. At another, he voted along with the senators and had to be reminded that he had lost his senatorial bid. Once, he also questioned the quorum at past midnight, a signal for minority colleagues to sneak off to the Congress canteen to avoid the roll call, and thus adjourn the session for another day.

Thankfully after a week of roundabout debates, Congress passed the amended rules. Angara and pals had attempted to insert sly provisos that would have repeated the countings in 216,382 precincts, and canvassings in 1,517 municipalities and 179 provinces and cities – already done three weeks ago. They also wanted Congress as a whole to conduct the canvass, instead of by joint panels from the Senate and House of Representative. But they were voted down.

Still, the opposition minority got the transparency amendments they wanted. One is for the panels to peruse the supporting precinct returns in case of slightest doubt about a provincial or city certificate of canvass. Another is for the congressman concerned automatically to be a nonvoting member of the panel for the duration that his district’s COC is being tallied. A third is an increase, from seven to 11 each, in the number of members in the Senate and House panels. But this the minority regretted on hindsight upon realizing they didn’t have enough lawyer-senators to sit in. Still, the majority obliged them with the concession of drawing lawyer-congressmen into the Senate panel.

But the opposition amendments guarantee a long-drawn canvass. The rules would allow them to dispute any COC in which their candidates for President and Vice President lost, even if there is nothing suspicious at face value. From there they would open the supporting precinct tallies and municipal canvasses, something they should have done weeks ago if they indeed had a vaunted five million poll watchers guarding against fraud. In the resumed joint session to ratify the panels’ reports and declare the winners, they could take turns speaking for hours to decry the majority’s alleged tyranny of numbers. Senate President Franklin Drilon and Speaker Jose de Venecia are praying that the minority would be statesmanly enough to accept any winner who is not theirs. But that is unlikely.

During the debates, the opposition shouted in and outside Congress that their presidential bet Fernando Poe Jr. had won the May 10 balloting, but that the administration majority would cheat the count. Their stalling of the canvass raise disbelief with this, however. If indeed Poe was ahead in their own count, they logically would want him proclaimed right away. By delaying the count, they seem to be delaying the inevitable outcome that he lost after all. The administration’s own tally has Gloria Arroyo leading by 1.1 million votes in 174 of its 179 COC copies. Poe’s tally has him ahead by 550,000, but only in 73 percent of his COCs. He has not explained why he stopped his count at that point. The continuous accusations of massive, systematic cheating, although unsubstantiated by any of the five million watchers, seems aimed at conditioning the public mind to jeer any verdict adverse to Poe.

The five-day dawdle to pass the canvassing rules is a preview of more delays in the canvassing itself. The administration has voiced fears of a No-Proclamation scenario. Unnamed opposition henchmen, it said, would fabricate COCs with bogus entries, to be blamed on Malacañang. "If they could manufacture a fake check to pin on film star Nora Aunor, what more fake COCs?" House majority leader Neptali Gonzales Jr. warned. The resulting disputes would protract the canvassing beyond June 30, the day a new President should be sworn into office.

A related warning by police intelligence is that opposition Sen. Greg Honasan has been inciting restive soldiers to revolt, as he did as an Army colonel in 1986-1989, as a candidate in 2001, and as senator in 2003. Too, that professional agitators of ex-president Joseph Estrada are rousing paid mobs to protest the supposed widespread poll fraud. A military uprising coinciding with demonstrations would be a deadly combination with a Congress failure to declare a winner by end-June.

If that happens, the Senate President must serve as Acting President to call for special elections within 60 days. But the constitutional provision applies to death, permanent disability, removal from office or resignation of both the sitting President and Vice President. Drilon thus shudders at the thought of No-Proclamation, saying "I will be shot on the first day." For, under another provision, militarists might grab power as "protector of the people" in the ensuing turmoil. Poe, the opposition’s acclaimed leader, would be left by the wayside.

The scenario could play out, given the opposition mood. They’re showing themselves to be spoiled brats who will never concede defeat with humility and grace. "If they can’t get the toy called the Presidency, then neither will Gloria," an administration senator reads the opposition mind. It’s no different from the rich kid who, after losing a kite fight with a poor playmate, crumples his toy instead of, by rule, handing it to the winner.

From intelligence reports, the opposition plot is to copy the events leading to EDSA-1 – from a walkout from the canvassing, to a military mutiny, a self-proclamation, and holdouts in the streets.

* * *

Catch Linawin Natin, Mondays at 11 p.m., on IBC-13.

* * *

E-mail: [email protected]