EDITORIAL - Cleansing

Zaldy Ampatuan started it, saying he was prepared to talk about cheating in the 2007 midterm elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, where he once served as governor. Even as the government evaluates the offer, a man long wanted in connection with election irregularities in the ARMM has emerged from hiding. Apart from echoing Ampatuan’s claim on the 2007 elections, Lintang Bedol, who was fired as poll supervisor for “losing” election documents in Maguin-danao, told abs-cbn that ballot boxes were switched and fake documents used to rig the vote in the province in the 2004 general elections.

Bedol said he went into hiding for fear that he might suffer the same fate as Alioden Dalaig, the head of the Commission on Elections’ law department who was shot dead as he was crossing the street in front of a hotel in Ermita, Manila on the night of Nov. 10, 2007. The murder has not been solved. Dalaig had signed the order for Bedol’s arrest for mishandling election documents. Bedol claimed a fire that hit the Comelec in March 2007 also destroyed evidence of poll fraud.

Accusations of cheating have tainted every electoral exercise in this country. The system of settling electoral protests rewards cheaters, who can occupy the contested position until the next campaign period before the protest is resolved and the real winner is installed. Many protests are settled long after the cheater has finished serving the term. This has bred impunity in vote rigging. Identifying poll cheats and imposing penalties on both the vote manipulator and the beneficiary will discourage electoral fraud.

Lintang Bedol could provide an opportunity to start a thorough cleansing of the voting system. Zaldy Ampatuan, who insists he merely wants to come clean and is not trying to cut a deal in connection with his indictment as a principal in the Maguindanao massacre, might have a credible story to tell about elections in the ARMM under his watch. His story, and that of Bedol, could help clean up the country’s electoral process.