Two days before election day

Our hopes are high that Monday’s election will be free, peaceful and orderly, and truly reflective of the voice of the nation’s electorate.

The campaign period has been, to say the least, full of dirt and grime, lies and fabrications. Nasty comments, up to the last minute, float on the Internet — of one candidate spewing food at his seatmate and playing computer games in his room while Congress was in session; of the other being a cheat, and a liar, and surely to retrieve his expenses by dubious means if he is elected to office. How strange that dead parents and siblings are being used to bolster candidate’s fitness for the job. Polling agencies reportedly owned by relatives of candidates, are said to rig survey results. Teams put up their bets by putting down the other teams’ candidates. Texters warn about voting candidates being lobbyists for multinational drug companies, resulting in the high cost of medicines. Voters dread not so much the competence or lack of it of one candidate as the arrogance of his supporters, trumpeters and public relations team who act like they’re superior to the rest of us.

But what sets off this year’s election as tremendously different from previous ones is the use of automated voting, legislated in hopes of preventing cheating in the voting polls. This columnist personally felt agitated by the unexpected erroneous configuration in the memory cards on the PCOS machines, resulting in the non-reading of local candidates’ names.

I felt sorry for the blame being heaped on Comelec commissioners and Smartmatic officials and those who have made automated voting push us up to 21st century technological advancement. Now I’m glad we are made to believe that corrections in the technical flaw have been made — proving that the new system is transparent, no need to panic, please.

And so to the polls we go on Monday.

But let me say that if the candidates my partner and I have chosen do not win, we shall support the winners in any way we can, whoever they will be. And we enjoin all of us to do so — in the interest of our country — to give our new leaders the  encouragement and chance to prove they have been rightfully elected to govern over us.

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This late, some friends have been calling to put in a good word about them or their candidates, perhaps believing that the pen is mighty enough to win votes.

One of the candidates who they say should be voted to the Senate in Tuesday’s election is Nacionalista Party senatorial candidate Atty. Gwen Pimentel, daughter of Senate Minority Leader Aquilino ‘Nene’ Pimentel Jr. who’s bowing out of the Upper House by June 30. Gwen bills herself as ‘Anak Mindanao.’ She champions child and family welfare, though her concerns are wide-ranging, which is why her platform is called CHILDREN, which stands for Child Rights/Cooperatives; Health/Human Rights; Investments; Local Government/Federalism; Defense; Resources/Energy; Education, Election, Ethical Governance, Environment, and National Unity.

 Gwen wants to look after the health, education, welfare and safety of all children, particularly street children, children in conflict with the law and children in war-torn areas. She also wants to put a stop to child labor, prostitution and trafficking. She advocates cooperatives development as a key step in helping people help themselves.

Gwen seeks to make education available to everyone and promote courses appropriate to our developmental needs. If elected, she will emphasize ethical governance to fight graft and corruption, and pursue electoral reforms to ensure that electoral exercises are clean, fair, peaceful and credible. She is also an ardent environmentalist and will draft laws aimed at a clean and green environment. 

Gwen’s political platform stresses the need for national unity because without it, she says, the nation cannot achieve sustained economic growth, political stability and social progress.

 Gwen has a master’s degree in public administration and a law degree from UP, and a BA in international studies from Maryknoll College in Quezon City.

Pimentel has been her father’s chief of staff in the Senate from 1998 to the present. Her previous work experience includes Solicitor III, Office of the Solicitor General; board member, Inter-Country Adoption Board of the Department of Social Welfare and Development; and a member, Inter-Country Adoption Placement Committee, DSWD Inter-Country Adoption Board. She taught English and History at the Liceo de Cagayan, Cagayan de Oro City.

She is president of the Association of Child Caring Agencies of the Philippines (ACCAP); founding and board member of Meritxell Children’s Homes; and an officer of Chosen Children Village Foundation and St. Mary’s College Alumni Foundation. She is also the author of the book, “Adopting a Filipino Child the Inter-Country Way.”

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Another friend from the martial law years and whom I cannot refuse space, requests that I say something about his party-list group. I have written about another transport group. My friend’s group is Bangon Transport, a multi-sectoral nationwide transport organization, comprised of truckers, jeepney drivers and operators (JODA), tricycle operators and drivers (TODA), taxi drivers and operators, pedicab (padyak) drivers and operators associations, formally launched in 2007.

Bangon Transport’s ultimate vision is “the empowerment of the transportation sector which for decades had remained neglected and marginalized.” It claims that many administrations have failed to come up with laws, programs and policies that will effect support to the sector.

Among the advocacies of Bangon Transport are: to push for the Magna Carta for the Transport Sector; to repeal the Oil Deregulation Law and exemption of petroleum products from the 12 percent RVAT; to review, modify and repeal other laws, regulations and local ordinances that run counter to the transport sectors’ interest, and to push for a National Transport Council which will primarily be governed and run by “genuine leaders” of the sector.      

A representative of Bangon Transport in Congress is deemed to empower the sector and help in its advocacies and interests “for a better and healthier national economy.”

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It is so difficult to understand how an incumbent congressman running for reelection can make a mistake in filling up his Certificate of Candidacy (COC) that could lead to his disqualification by the Comelec as a candidate, and in the event he wins, his position could be taken away from him.

This is the serious predicament that reelectionist Nacionalista Party candidate Wilfrido Mark Enverga of Quezon province’s first district currently faces. A supporter of his who happens to be a friend told me about Enverga’s problem that stemmed from his having placed in his COC an address that belongs, not to the district he wants to represent again, but to the second district! Because of this, a group of residents from the first district has filed with the Comelec a Petition for Enverga’s disqualification, as election rules closely state that one who is not a resident of the place where he seeks public office may not qualify as a candidate. Which only stands to reason - and this is why my friend is flabbergasted about the predicament that his candidate has to contend with, one that he only has himself to blame.

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