What about Filipinos who never lose?

All attention seems to be focused on power shortage, lack of training for teachers etc. etc. if there should be a failure of elections. But so far I have not read anything about “Filipinos who never lose” that is more likely to happen when winners are declared using the automated election as an excuse. This is not helped by surveys going ahead of the election by predicting winners. (Read Roberto Romulo’s column yesterday “Poll survey firms on the dock.”)

By all means let us keep a close watch on how Comelec handles the 2010 automated election. By the way if I remember right, automated elections have long been talked about but it has been repeatedly waylaid by politicians who prefer “manual election because it is the animal they know.” It is good to hear from Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes himself that the power crisis is real and not a ploy of the administration to disrupt the May elections. “There’s nothing political about the power shortage situation - it’s a real problem.”

So much pussyfooting until the Arroyo government pushed hard for it in Congress and wants it to be one of her legacies.

It can be better appreciated if the public has a correct perspective on the issue. The public must be reminded that automated election was made possible by Republic Act No. 9369. That is the perspective we must keep as far as the role of the government is concerned.

So fears on technical flaws are best addressed to the computer experts. We have enough Filipinos who understand computer systems to keep watch. We may want automated election but it cannot be implemented without the technology needed to run it.

Comelec’s role is to monitor that the systems work and that they do so in time for the 2010 election. We have Comelec Chairman Melo’s word it will. It was never the case that the Comelec would operate the system.

We have to recognize that a third party, the computer experts, is included to fully implement the Act. They have provided the government with the technology needed to run the elections. Therefore the public eye must focus on whether these technology providers are doing their job.

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I welcome Christian Monsod’s letter regarding my column in which I wrote about NAMFREL. This is the way it should be in democratic discourse. So let me begin by citing some corrections about the figures I wrote in the column.

These were given to me by Manoling Morato in whose house the meeting between Cory Aquino and Ambassador Stephen Bosworth was held. It is not a supposed meeting as Monsod describes it. (The meeting did happen and there are enough witnesses alive today who can confirm that.)

I will quote parts from Manoling’s long letter in rebuttal. He wants me to correct the figures I wrote. He says it was not $2 million that was advanced but $5 million. The new request was for the balance of $20 million making it a total of $25 million. In answer to the accusation that it is double hear-say, Morato writes: “In the course of the conversation, the Ambassador said: ‘Manuel, don’t ever repeat this, but we have given $5M to Namfrel plus another $20M.’ (Morato: I am saying it now while Bosworth is still alive). (CNP: The US ambassador was also probably making sure that there would be a witness.)

“I did not know what for, but I was happy for I sincerely wanted Cory to win.

 While I promised never to say anything about it, I had told then President Fidel V. Ramos and Cory about it through personal letters. And I left it at that. Later I wanted the truth known because of former Cory Aquino’s objection to Charter Amendments in a rally she held at the Quirino Grandstand together with Cardinal Sin and then Vice President Joseph Estrada.

By the way, nowhere in the article does it refer to Monsod or Concepcion being present in the meeting therefore he cannot refute information he was not privy to,” Morato adds.

As former, I also stand corrected for describing Mr. Monsod as being at the helm of the opposition. OK, just one of those at the helm. Mea culpa. Nothing wrong with that. After all, he is a Lopez man and the Lopezes’ all out war against the Arroyo government is not a secret.

The more important lesson of this Aquino-Bosworth meeting is the issue of sovereignty. We have too many Filipinos who do not see anything wrong with behaving as if we were still an American colony. With NAMFREL wanting again to play an important role in the 2010 elections, it is good to ventilate accusations and rumors of the role it played in previous elections.

In his book, Leaders from Marcos to Arroyo, Homobono Adaza writes about how he stopped the NAMFREL count because he feared that if they were using the same figures as the Batasan, then at the end of the day, they will also be confirming the victory of Marcos. Better stop it while Cory was ahead he told Joe Concepcion. That is told by someone who was inside the NAMFREL operations and brave enough to write it in a book.

There are those who might say but if we had not done that then we would still have Marcos. Maybe. But we do not have Marcos anymore so why should we behave in the same way? Our job now is to strengthen our institutions. Certainly, NAMFREL’s role then and now should be put into question. If it is a vested interest group it hardly deserves to be an election watchdog, which was the role it played in 1983. Comelec is right to deny its petition to be accredited as the citizen’s arm of the poll body due to “doubts about its credibility.”

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This is confirmed by Christian Monsod himself who said in his letter that he and other Namfrel officials met with Bosworth just before the 1986 elections. He said Bosworth wanted a briefing on Namfrel’s preparations and he asked about Namfrel’s finances.

This is when the issue becomes murky with Monsod’s fairy tale of an answer: “Our answer was that Namfrel indeed needed financing but we would raise it from Filipinos themselves. We said that if we really wanted democracy to be restored, our volunteers would have to put themselves on the line and also provide the resources, in cash or in kind, in their own communities. And that is how the resources were raised. And I can say categorically that NAMFREL did not get any money from the United States.”

 We now have a puzzle in our hands. Where then did the money go?