Poor losers

Last week, there was a role reversal of sorts because media became the news when two groups both claimed they won the National Press Club elections. The rift has been brewing ever since accusations were made that an illegal assembly in 2003 sneakily amended the NPC by-laws to expand the definition of the term "journalist," reportedly to allow "unqualified" individuals to vote during elections. The two rival parties in last Sunday’s election traded accusations that each group engaged in illegal tactics, with one group securing a TRO to stop the elections. Chaos naturally ensued when the rival factions held their own elections in two different venues within the NPC premises, with both parties declaring victory. This would have been laughable, if not for the underlying seriousness of the issue.

What’s happening in the NPC is a reflection of politics Pinoy-style where election results are always questioned and opposing parties accuse each other of cheating. And vote rigging. Associations including exclusive clubs with supposedly honorable and educated people as members more often than not also lose civility because of politics as they engage in a bitter conflict. Even the Philippine Stock Exchange in the past was hounded by controversy every time board elections were held. Fortunately, the most recent elections have been the most peaceful so far. Traditionally however, the history of Philippine politics has always been marred by candidates refusing to concede defeat gracefully and graciously. In this country, there’s no such thing as "concede"; it’s more like "conceit" because no candidate believes he or she lost – they always cry "cheating."

In 1961, Carlos P. Garcia refused to accept defeat, crying fraud and claiming that Diosdado Macapagal cheated him of victory. It took Garcia a long time before he could accept that he lost, and finally concede to his former vice president. Remember, too, how Miriam Santiago ranted and raved against FVR’s victory in the 1992 elections? Maid Miriam released quite a diatribe against Ramos, protesting the results until it was declared moot and academic when she ran for the Senate.

As a matter of fact, even the late Raul Roco and Eddie Villanueva, said to be among the bottom-rung candidates in the last elections (never mind the nuisance candidate Eddie Gil), did not immediately concede victory to GMA when people knew they did not really have a big chance of winning. Even down to the barangay level, candidates bitterly refuse to acknowledge their rivals’ victory, and so we see protests being filed left and right even if they know these are not likely to prosper because they were, in reality, the losers.

Perhaps a not so known example of defeat being accepted in a rather ironic way is the story told to me by Max Soliven about the Nacionalista Party convention in 1964, when Ferdinand Marcos and Emmanuel Pelaez vied for nomination as the party’s standard bearer. Emmanuel Pelaez was a classmate of my father at the Ateneo, a Jesuit school known for its idealism and righteousness — sometimes to the extreme. Anyway, Marcos and Pelaez had a gentleman’s agreement that there would be no vote buying of delegates. The result of the first balloting was so close that a second one was needed. Before the second balloting, Marcos reportedly engaged in vote buying, causing one of the supporters of Pelaez, who was then vice president, to come up to him and say, "Mr. Vice President, we have to do something! Marcos is buying the votes of the delegates!" To which Emmanuel Pelaez retorted, "We have a gentleman’s agreement. I’d rather be right, than be president." Pelaez was right; he did not become President.

With 2007 fast approaching and the looming synchronized elections, it’s about time we adopted a computerized system. As much as possible, this electronic voting system should be foolproof so that we’ll see the end of accusations of cheating and vote rigging, but knowing Filipinos, they will probably find a way to fool the computer. But if there’s one person who could probably help rid the country of this perennial problem, it would be Raffy Garcia III, another idealistic and righteous Atenean. Raffy is a pretty high-tech whiz who was dubbed "Mr. Computer" in the early ’70s, and he has been able to develop "Botong Pinoy," a system that would make elections faster and fraud-free because it would eliminate the old "dagdag-bawas" trick.

Under Raffy’s Botong Pinoy, biometric technology will be employed to prevent double registration through fingerprint scanning. It’s also interactive, so illiterate voters can see the photos and hear the names of the candidates and cast their votes by touching the computer screen. Right after the validation process, the ballot is automatically printed with the names of the candidates chosen and the voter’s computer-generated fingerprint. A barcode will allow easy scanning and vote tabulation later. Too bad this system was rejected by the Comelec in the last elections because it was "too modern." Maybe it’s about time the Comelec listened to this gentleman and take a closer look at Botong Pinoy. And knowing the Filipino psyche very well, Raffy promises that Filipinos won’t be able to fool around with this computerized system.

A good example of a successful computerized voting system was displayed by India in 2004, during one of its hotly contested parliamentary elections. India had about 675 million registered voters and with a 56 percent voter turnout conducted within a span of three weeks, that’s still 380 million votes that needed to be counted. Yet election results were known three days after the last ballot was cast because Indians used portable electronic voting machines or EVMs that were said to be tamper proof. This is not really surprising considering that there are a lot of IT wizards in India. Their system is probably one of the most successful in the world, and is being adopted in many other countries.

Right now, the present occupant of Malacañang continues to be hounded by questions regarding the legitimacy of her tenure. It’s about time we started moving towards the modern age of computer voting. If we continue to pretend that there is no cheating during elections in this country, then we obviously are fooling ourselves. The worst part is – the ordinary Johnny dela Cruz always ends up being the "poor" loser – perennially being fooled.

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