Letter To The Editor: Can Comelec stand between me and my democratic rights?

What I can’t understand is, why, when under the laws of this land (as I understand them) one has to be 40 or over (39-year-olds need not apply), a Filipino, read and write ones own name, an automatic qualification for application to the office of the Presidency of my country has been accepted and one can proceed in promoting ones platform, ideas, etcetera at ones own expense.

That’s very democratic is it not? It is after all, the majority that will decide the outcome of a general election.

We are of course a fledgling democracy and we may not understand the simple principles of this ideology, but let me remind all, that having been pre-qualified by the above statutory rules, anyone can simply be dismissed as a ‘nuisance applicant’ because Comelec has the ‘power’ to decide who or who not should run.

These political ‘police’ this quango called Comelec can stand between me and my democratic rights? They will decide? Is it not the people who ‘filter’ applicants at the ballot box?

Who started all this inane nonsense in the first place? Is my government saying they have control of who can run and who can’t run for public office? Or is it the city governments that have that control?

Are these people who have the ‘power’ to overrule democracy and decide my country’s leader all over 40? Can they also read and write their own names?

And why are rich convicted criminals welcomed, encouraged and endorsed by this organization, and well meaning ‘poorer’ candidates dismissed with the wave of a hand and Comelec are not required to even give a reasonable reason, ( he/ she, is under forty years old and can’t read or write, for example).

On the automation of voting procedures, Comelec have had six years to prepare for this election. Six years! (2,190 days!) And the electronic machines are late?

On the contract issued to the company supplying these machines, was there ever a penalty clause that said that for every day this company is late in delivering, a penalty of, say, $1 million a day would be levied? Basic contractual conditions really, surely any government ‘negotiator’ worth his salt would include that for his/ her country?

This is the Government of the Republic of the Philippines for goodness sake; our future hangs on this, it is not Bong Bong's Sari Sari store. (Or whatever).

Jeane D. Tayo

Bantayan Island, Cebu