Protests and proclamations

The swirling controversies on alleged spurious election results have cast doubts on the validity of the win of some candidates including that of the presidential and vice presidential front runners. Doubt however, has always been a persistent goblin in the Philippine elections. Defeat is seldom accepted. Almost always, the reaction of those who don’t make it is disbelief, sometimes genuine, sometime pretended.

Genuine disbelief was felt by those who firmly believed they won. They did their best to get people to their side. They spent much and talked much, and thousands showed up in their rallies. But why the loss? Something is wrong somewhere!

Disbelief is make-believe from aspirants who knew their chance of winning was slim. Either they lacked the machinery and money or they were overshadowed by their opponents’ popularity, their status, they knew, had been shaky all along. But why complain? The answer is our warped political culture which makes social non-acceptance painful. Filipino leaders are crazy about being popular and idolized. That’s why they are obsessed with winning. At the polls it’s not only leadership that’s at stake, it’s one’s ego too. To keep that ego intact rationalization of a loss is resorted to.

That’s why in the current controversies it’s the losing candidates and their henchmen who are high strung. From them came accusations of massive cheating for which reason they call for congressional inquiry. These reactions are in order if there really were reasons for suspicion. Unfortunately, the idea that some of them had ulterior motives persists, especially with the report that the “Koala” witness was a bogey from Malacañang.

At first Comelec tried to parry aside these complaints as mere allegations and without value. The first hand testimony of a masked witness was dismissed as a mere fairy tale. Even the claims of key political figures from Mindanao and the Visayas that there were monkey-business were met with skepticism. But the deluge of complaints that swamped that office compelled it to ask the NBI to investigate these complaints.

The question now is, with Congress and Comelec busy trying to make heads and tails of these controversies, would this not delay the canvassing of votes and the subsequent proclamation of the winners in the presidential and vice presidential race? Some quarters fear a possible delay. In fact, with the current rules of canvassing adopted by Congress—which mandate that the PCOS generated COCs be compared with the manually accomplished ones and to defer the counting of COCs with discrepancies — more delays are likely to happen. The reason is that there would be arguments and counter-arguments spiced with grandstanding and oratory.

The question is, would the people accept the delay of Aquino’s proclamation? His electronically transmitted votes exceed those of his closest rival by more than 5 million. Three aspirants have conceded, while a number of foreign governments have congratulated him. More important, the people have virtually accepted him as their next president. There is no reason therefore not to proclaim him president before June 30.

For the vice presidential race, delay in proclaiming the winner may be acceptable considering the closeness of the contest. Discrepancies between the machine count and the manual count should be carefully threshed out in the interest of fairness and truth. But such delay should only be a matter of days and results should be at hand before June 30 so that both officials can be officially declared winners within the regulation period.

Despite the many protests on alleged irregularities, that May 10 election has been perceived to be generally peaceful and clean and its outcomes acceptable. Those protests should as usual be treated following the law and decisions should be promulgated. But this process should be done within a reasonable period, otherwise where’s justice for the deserving candidates? Lately, there have been a spate of election- related rulings issued only a few days or months before the contested term ended. These happenings are not only condemnable, they are a mockery of justice.

Anyway, the people have spoken, and spoken loudly. Let their voice be therefore upheld because “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”

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