Looking back at the May 10 polls

So we have now a president and a vice-president. For the first time proclaiming the winners of these positions came much earlier than what it used to be, thanks to automation and its gadgetry called PCOS machines.

Actually, the proclamation was just a stamp of formality to the outcome of the polls, particularly with regard to the presidential race. About five hours after the precincts closed on May 10, the people knew already who would be their next president.

In contrast, the vice-presidential contest was a toss-up between Roxas and Binay even after a week of canvassing. So close were the figures that it was difficult to tell who would finally be it.

A triumph for democracy, observers called the speedy resolution of who won in the presidential and vice-presidential race. For decades, it took several weeks before the winners could be proclaimed - weeks of anxiety and fears that some hocus-pocus was happening to rig up the results. "Dagdag-bawas", in fact, became the catch-word of votes switching whose classic example was the "Hello Garci" brouhaha.

Was there dagdag-bawas in that election? Perhaps there was but this must have even on limited scale only, so lighting fast did the machines transmit the results. Yet crusaders for clean election cannot afford to relax their vigilance. If computers can be hacked, why not PCOS machines? So right now some warped minds in this country must be busy finding ways to make these machines dysfunctional as electoral tools. To counter this, Comelec ought to start finding ways to make the automated process tamper-proof. Machines by themselves, of course, do not make for clean elections. It's people who do. For even if the gadgetry is perfect, it can be used for a wrong purpose for a fee. In fact, in the last elections there were talks of a syndicate which allegedly assured some candidate of a win in exchange for a huge amount of money.

There were also complaints of discrepancies between the manual counts and machine-generated ones. More serious were the millions of null votes which if validated could have changed the outcome of the election, especially with reference to the vice-presidency. In the old system, voiding of votes was done only with regard to specific positions. If, for example, a voter wrote the names of two candidates for mayor in a certain locality, only this vote was nullified, but not the votes for other positions, if properly accomplished. But in the new system the entire ballot, along with the votes for all other positions, is declared null and void. This is grossly unfair for candidates in whose bailiwick this occurs. Surely, something can be done with the software to prevent this from happening in the next elections.

Improving the technology of our electoral process should be complemented with improving the quality of our electoral culture. For one thing, something should be done towards leveling the playing fields, so to speak. As it is, an incumbent who runs for another term is practically unbeatable because he can mobilize government resources to his advantage. For example, he can organize training sessions for prospective voters in the guise of implementing certain thrusts such as productivity, environmental control, anti-drug addiction and what not all at the government's expense. Or he can mobilize a group of electors into an emergency labor force to work on certain projects with salaries chargeable to public funds. And is not the gimmick of using a footage to advertise oneself along with a government project a common practice among incumbent officials? How about showering senior citizens with a windfall of cash assistance using taxpayer's money?

With these political strategies, who can stand against a candidate who is a key official in his domain? Yet to the general populace these practices seem in order, the reason why even the media don't frown on them. Even naked vote-buying, a patently illegal thing, is becoming an accepted practice. Time was when to accept money in exchange for one's vote was looked upon as a shameful act. But now it's considered part of the political game. Election time is therefore payback time. Payback because politicians are simply shelling back to the people their own money the former amassed through clandestine transactions.

Triumph of democracy in the May 10 polls? How good if this was completely true!

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