The wheels of justice grind exceedingly slow in this country, but something moves slower: the canvassing of votes. The tallying at the joint session of Congress, sitting as the National Canvassing Board, is excruciating to watch. When the canvass finally got underway, ballot boxes were opened gingerly and every document scrutinized at length by lawmakers with an eye to live TV coverage. Figures were announced and written down on pieces of paper. These were then posted beside the names of candidates for president and vice president, which were listed on a large sheet displayed for all to see. We can’t get any more low-tech than this.
At the current pace, the canvassing could take until Christmas. Chairman Jose Melo of the Commission on Elections probably anticipated this when he faced the nation less than three hours after the polling centers closed on May 10, to announce that the election results were coming in at record pace, with the voting trend favoring Sen. Benigno Aquino III and Makati Jejomar Binay for the top two contested posts.
Because of the announcements from the Comelec, by morning of May 11, Sen. Manuel Villar conceded to Sen. Benigno Aquino III, followed later in the day by former defense chief Gilberto Teodoro. Winners in local races were proclaimed quickly. Within a week, all the 12 winning senators were proclaimed. Based on the returns for the Senate race, the winners in the races for president and vice president could have been officially known at the same time. But the amended law on poll modernization did not relieve Congress of its task of canvassing and proclaiming the new president and vice president.
The past days have shown many of the lawmakers set in their ways. Most of them are clearly befuddled by technology. They are aided in their antics by people nostalgic for the days when the voting system was easier to understand and there was a wide room for manipulating the results.
Why did taxpayers fork out at least P7.8 billion, on top of the P1.2 billion that another private consortium has refused to refund for the first aborted automation deal, only for the country to see a return to the laborious manual tallying of votes for the two top government posts? The major political parties have election watchers to verify the figures reported in the canvass. Can’t that process move any faster? Lawmakers should dispel perceptions that the more things change in this country, the more Congress stays the same.