EDITORIAL - Recipe for disaster

The "Texters Choice" hullabaloo in the 2009 Miss Cebu Pageant should serve as a great lesson to learn from for all those intending to organize any future contests or pageants of a similar nature.

The lesson is that it is never wise to weave a parallel contest into the main contest, especially one that relies on points derived from anonymous and unaccountable sources. That is because the possibility of such sources getting manipulated is immensely great.

Take the Texters Choice Contest, for example. By its very name, it means that it relies on votes coming from texters. On the surface, there is nothing wrong with that. But once you factor in the possibility of organizing an army of texters, the landscape drastically changes.

That means the outcome of a text-based contest may no longer reflect the truth. A candidate who wins in a text-based contest is no longer necessarily the best. The text victory simply means the candidate may have enjoyed the backing of a well-organized army of texters.

In fact it is easy to see if an army of texters has been employed or not. Just check the texted-in votes with reality. Ask yourself whether a particular contest is that popular to generate such a number of votes.

But more than just a side contest being not truly reflective of reality, the bigger harm such a side contest can do is to undermine the results of the main contest, especially if the winners do not happen to be one and the same person.

If the winner of the main contest is not the same as the winner of a side contest, the situation arises when the winner of the side contest can question the validity of the outcome of the main contest itself, just be simply invoking the votes derived from outside sources.

Thus, it is always better and wise to just stick with the main contest. Why should organizers have a parallel contest that will only rival the main one? Having parallel and potentially contradictory contests is a recipe for disaster.