Who needs to use cellphone jammers?

While the Comelec and its partner Smartmatic are working feverishly to bring automated elections to this country, you can bet that those ugly politicians who use their elective government positions to serve themselves using the people’s money are also working just as feverishly to thwart our automated elections so they can continue staying in power … by hook or by crook!

It is a fact that many of them have already used their PR people to throw monkey wrenches at the automated elections, sending all sorts of doubts about its success. They are the ones who constantly insist that the failure of elections are so real, we might as well go back to the old and tried manual method, which have dominated our dirty politics for decades. We already know that the old and tried manual method means, the crooked ones have a chance to “dagdag bawas” while the counting is going on.

The best reason why we must shift to automated polls has happened right here in our own backyard in Cebu’s 4th District between Rep. Ben-Hur Salimbangon and Rep. Tining Martinez. Right now, it is a legal struggle whether Tining can take his oath or not in the last few days of the session. While Tining has already been declared winner by the Supreme Court, I don’t blame Ben-Hur for making trying to stop him from taking his seat… after all, his tactics are legal. This incident should never be allowed to happen again and it can only be stopped by automated elections.

Now the latest caper was the surreptitious arrival of some 5,000 cellphone jammers into the country. Now please tell me who would purchase a cellphone jammer if not pranksters? But a cellphone jammer is no plaything especially when we’re talking about automating our national elections where a jamming device could disrupt the counting. Jamming devices for cellphones are illegal in most western countries like the US and UK. I can understand its military use, especially against the New People’s Army (NPA) that often use cellphones to communicate with their cadres, but nothing for civilian use.

So what is the Commission on Elections (Comelec) doing about this? There are a lot of questions that need answers like… how did they know that 5,000 such jammers have arrived in the country? Where are these jammers now? In absence of a law against jammers, can the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) issue such a ban? What would be the penalty if any? Of course, it would be better if those jammers were intercepted. But the more important question of all is… who brought these jammers into the country? One or two jammers may disrupt the polls, but 5,000 could cause unnecessary havoc!

We are right now in the midst of a gun ban in order to reduce election related violence… but if those jammers aren’t stopped, I guarantee you that there will be poll violence unless the Comelec acts quickly to prevent these jammers from spreading all over the country. What we need is decisive action from the Comelec and the NTC. Once the NTC or the Comelec bans those jammers, then it is up to us well-meaning citizens to scour the urban or countryside looking for those jamming devices and stop them before they can be used or misused to disrupt our automated polls.

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I was just about to enter the Transcentral Highway in Balamban headed back to Cebu City when I had to slow down because a large crowd or uzizeros were huddled around what I was told two dead bodies in what I assumed was another motorcycle accident in Barangay Cansumoroy some 10-kms from the town of Balamban. As it was getting dark and since I’ve seen many motorcycle related accidents, I didn’t stop anymore.

However last Monday, The Freeman reported that that was no motorcycle accident…it was most probably a shootout with a British national named Frank Richard Bell who claimed that the teenagers on board their motorcycle shot at his Kia Sorento… and he fired back. Hmmm, this alone is a violation of the gun ban. But there are indeed bullet holes in his vehicle, so now the police or even the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) needs to properly investigate this incident.

Who were the two fatalities? What does the autopsy show? Where they really involved in a kidnapping attempt or a shoot out or as the rumour goes was this a love-triangle turned sour? As the report goes, one of the fatalities allegedly had an affair with the wife of the foreigner. If Mr. Bell’s story connects, then I would like to know if this is an isolated love-triangle incident or is there some kind of gang that is targeting expats in Cebu? This is a very serious concern for us as it might affect the image of Cebu as a haven for foreign investors or expats? Let’s find out some more about this.

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