Kit Tatad’s tirade

Apropos of the Commission on Elections’ insistence that there is no more time to implement an automated or computerized system in time for the May 2007 polls, I got a text message from the principal proponent of Botong Pinoy, Rafael "Raffy" or "Bogie" Garcia, who was a classmate at the Ateneo.

Raffy’s text, which as you might expect, disputes the Comelec’s claim of lack of "material" time, reads: "I offered Botong Pinoy to Comelec for free. It uses standard PCs that the Department of Budget and Management regularly procures without need of bidding. Botong Pinoy has a full paper trail. It is idiot-proof. It is fully auditable. Kung ayaw may dahilan. Kung gusto may paraan." (Loosely translated: Where there’s a will, there’s a way.)

However, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez, one of the more articulate government agency spokesmen around, had said over the weekend that 15 prospective suppliers of automated election machines had withdrawn "because of time constraints." Putting on a lawyer’s hat, although I’m not sure whether James is a member of the bar, he said that, "The law does not compel the performance of an impossible thing."

That legal posture, verily and manifestly (Hey, we can put our lawyer’s hat on too!), begs the question. Whether the performance of this "thing," i.e. automation, is in fact and demonstrably "impossible," is the gravamen of the debate.

Senator Dick Gordon accuses Comelec of dereliction of duty. Jimenez echoes the sentiments of his boss, Chairman Ben Abalos, that there is simply is not enough time to automate elections, even on a pilot area basis, competently and efficiently. The law was signed only last week, whereas the Comelec had already said that it needed to get things moving since last August. Since the law was passed only last week, Comelec believes Congress has passed on to it an impossible and unfair burden.

The Comelec and the pro-automation advocates are taking diametrically opposed and fundamentally contradictory positions. There is either enough time, or not enough time. Implementing automation in pilot areas will either result in faster results and therefore more credible elections, or it will not.

Arguing in media won’t resolve these questions. What we need are facts, not rhetoric. We don’t need finger-pointing, but hands resolutely grappling with a serious problem plaguing our political system. Does it really matter who’s at fault?

I think it’s fair to say that right now, we’re more confused than ever, and about as worried about our democracy as we can be.

* * *

Former Senator Kit Tatad hit a really raw nerve with his highly-publicized bolting from the United Opposition. As his two-page spread in this newspaper yesterday makes clear, his concerns had to do with political dynasties and the criteria or standards used in admitting "anyone who wants to ride the Opposition bandwagon."

First, some clarifications: Tatad claims he had nothing to do with the publication, as a "paid advertisement," of his letter dated January 15th to "President Joseph Ejercito Estrada." He says he gave a copy of the said letter to businessman Ray Orosa, but authorized the use of the document in any manner Ray saw fit. Sen.Tatad says he was surprised when informed of the ad, but has no objection to it since his statements to Estrada were for the public record.

Second, Tatad wants to make clear he is no longer interested in running in the 2007 elections, a revelation which took even former Sen. John Osmeña by surprise on Viewpoints yesterday. Osmeña was even moved to volunteer his slot on the opposition ticket to Tatad, an offer which the latter politely refused.

To those who think that his objection to certain candidacies was because he wanted to himself be a candidate, Kit insists that that was not his point at all.

He says: "My one consuming desire is to see the country return to a state of normalcy where we can all live a morally upright life, and one does not have to be part of a power structure to get the respect he deserves. Where law and justice are one and truth presides, where deserving individuals are elected to high office because the office needs them, and not because they need the office. For this reason, I wanted to see electoral reforms before the parade of celebrities and popular incompetents begins."

Oh boy! Tatad’s statements will probably elicit heated replies from those celebrities and popular incompetents, all of whom will obviously not admit to being such but will likely refer to themselves as principled public servants imbued with an unquenchable fire to further the good of all people in the Philippines, especially the poor and the disadvantaged. (Cue the violins!)

Actually, Tatad’s point is a narrow one. He doesn’t reject ALL dynasties, only the "impediment" that the kin of some aspirants happen to be already serving in the Senate. He argues that the election of both Senators Loi and Jinggoy Estrada was a "one-shot deal," the result of an extraordinary situation to prove that despite Erap’s removal, he continued to enjoy popular support which the people were willing to turn into Senate seats for his wife and son.

But it is error, Tatad believes, for the President to "inflict his other son J.V. Ejercito on the UNO ticket" and for "two otherwise bright young men" – Alan Peter Cayetano, sister of Senator Pia, and Koko Pimentel, son of Senator Nene – to follow J.V.’s example.

Kit Tatad also directs his lethal pen at those who seek Erap’s blessing, after having been instrumental in bringing him down in 2001. "Some of these people," Kit fumes, "had junked the President without ceremony to support Mrs. Arroyo in 2001 and 2004; now they want UNO to give them a ride because it seems no longer profitable to be identified with Mrs. Arroyo, although they have not totally abandoned her…And we seem so eager to provide the revolving door for their crass opportunism." Touche!

The real issue, Tatad concludes, is the "moral integrity" of the opposition "as the presumed alternative to the Arroyo government." This is for him, he says, a "new turning point" in his political career. He does not say it is the end, nor does he make clear that he intends to eschew future political contests. But he clearly has burned some, maybe even a lot, of bridges.

As for the political scene, one can probably agree with Kit Tatad that the landscape is full of moral ambiguity, ethical relativism and personal opportunism. But it is precisely this wasteland that is the playground of the trapo.