Not a single election held in this country from the time it was adopted as a mode of choosing most of our public officials in the legislative and executive branches of government is there an instance where the results are not contested. Hence one of the favorite jokes going around during election is that in our country candidates don’t lose they are only cheated.
This may be a joke but it brings to light the stark reality in our democracy that something is indeed amiss in our electoral system or that Filipinos are poor losers, or both. Although looking at most of the protest cases swamping the Comelec and other electoral tribunals, it would appear that the fault lies more in our defective electoral process and the ineptness of the primary institution charged with conducting our election and enforcing our election laws — the Comelec.
This is very evident in the latest controversy swirling around the election protest of Senator Loren Legarda against Vice President Noli de Castro regarding the latter’s victory in the 2004 Vice Presidential election. Readily noticeable here is that even if our election laws are supposedly designed to insure a fraud free election, losing candidates somehow manage to cite incidences of alleged fraud that still have to be investigated and checked by the Supreme Court acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) empowered to hear and decide the said protest. This would not have happened if Comelec and its people in the field are doing their job in strictly enforcing the election rules and safeguarding the ballot boxes.
Without delving into the merits of the protest since the Loren camp has already signified their intention to file Motion for Reconsideration (MR) of the recent PET ruling dismissing her protest, some nagging questions keep on coming up not only in this particular election protest but in other protests concerning this issue of discrepancies in the different copies of ERs.
Under Omnibus Election Code as amended these ERs are prepared in handwriting at the polling place by the Board of Election Inspectors in six copies: one copy deposited in the compartment of the valid ballot box, and in case of municipalities two copies including the original are handed to the municipal election registrar who shall immediately deliver the original to the provincial election supervisor and forward the other to the Comelec while the remaining copies are each given to representatives of the accredited political parties (Section 214).
Assuming that there are discrepancies, which copies are authentic and which copies are tampered? Can it be readily concluded that the ERs submitted and used as the bases for canvassing votes in the local and national level are the tampered and fake ERs simply because a losing candidate says so and presents other copies of ERs bearing different results? Does it always follow that the winner is at fault if some tampering of ERs occurred? Is it not probable that the loser could have committed the tampering in a vain effort to snatch victory or that some other parties could have sabotage the process just to create doubt on the election’s credibility even if it will not affect the outcome? Will the protest still prosper if the ERs with discrepancies are not enough to change the overall outcome of the election?
It is noteworthy that a copy of the returns as initially prepared in the polling place is already given to the representatives of accredited parties. With such copy, a candidate could already point out the discrepancies if any when the local board of canvassers starts canvassing the returns. Or if the candidate affected is still frustrated, he could have called the attention of Congress regarding the discrepancies during its canvass of the certificate of votes. Were this done? Why still bother the Supreme Court acting as PET with the burden of checking and investigating the discrepancies by filing an expensive and tedious protest after going through all these process of checking them?
Senator Legarda and her topnotch election lawyer Atty. Boy Brillantes actually agreed with the dismissal of her protest on the ground that she has technically abandoned it when she ran for Senator in the last election. They are asking for a reconsideration of the ruling only with respect to the finding that she was not robbed of victory as no fraud was shown to have been committed. They dispute this finding by claiming to have submitted sufficient proof of the commission of fraud particularly the discrepancies in the ERs. They may be correct. This being so, she should have pursued her protest to its rightful conclusion so that she could be installed as the duly elected Vice President instead of abandoning it and settling for a lower position of Senator. Why did she not? Why go to the press right away to present the merits of their grounds for MR instead of just simply filing it and convincing the PET to revise its ruling so as to reflect the “triumph of the truth”?
These are questions that should not be completely ignored for they appear to be valid. They highlight everything that is wrong in our electoral system and in the Comelec. Whatever may be the ruling of the PET on Senator Legarda’s MR, the protest cannot be revived anymore. But at least it could and should fast track the implementation of the law on the computerization of our elections and the cleaning up of the Comelec. It should also trigger the enactment of a law disqualifying a candidate who filed an election protest from running for any other office while his/her protest is pending.
Reminder to all UST Alumni: General Homecoming on Feb. 16, 2008 at the Plaza Mayor, UST Campus starting 4 p.m. For further details call Mike Malicsi of the Office of Alumni Relations, 0922-9621004, e-mail uste_homecoming2008@yahoo.com
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