Beat the Cheats

Could it be that only me and myself seems to find the Senate Electoral Tribunal’s quickie victory pronouncement of Koko Pimentel as newly-minted senator, a scant few days after the resignation of his opponent Senator Miguel Zubiri, feeble and ludicrous?

 Of course, I greeted the news of Koko’s proclamation blaring from Friday’s headlines with great relief. After four years of battling this ridiculously archaic system of questioning election results, and with no apparent end in sight, it was truly just sheer luck operating in Koko’s favor that finally gave him the tribunal’s go-signal. I mean, who would have ever thought, when 2010 rolled in, that a political family in Mindanao would massacre scores of journalists, one of their scions would bleat to authorities to escape conviction, and his game card would be the massive cheating that his family had facilitated, if not engineered, at the behest of the powers-that-be?

 Plus, there’s also the fact that President Arroyo’s sphere of influence seems to be perceived by her then-allies as waning to negligible, and since it was time to save their own skin, they would then come forward and offer sundry items of proof to demonstrate how they were, sob, coerced to follow orders to snatch and substitute election returns. 

 And of course, the ultimate wild toss of the die for Koko: who would have ever thought that Senator Migz would be, cough cough, man enough to resign from the post that they had been squabbling about in enough time to finish a college degree? 

 Suddenly, on this ghost month, all these serendipitous events just lined themselves up for the erstwhile-loser, and Koko finds himself on the way to Manila, ready to report for work as the Senator for the remaining two years of his term.

 And just how did Senator Koko spend the first four years of his Senate life? Trying to convince the Tribunal to unseat Migz, that’s what. Of course, that’s no easy task to do, given the presumed reluctance of the seating senators to up and convict their brethren. And really, that’s what it probably all boils down to, since only a few days from Migz’s resignation, they managed to, somehow, speedily resolve all the issues raised by Koko and agree with him that yes, he was cheated by 258,000 votes.

 This alacrity we saw once Migs got out of the picture points to the conclusion that the Tribunal was taking its sweet time reaching a decision, and the only rationale that drove this was they simply didn’t want to rock the boat. A spokesperson tried to attribute this to the counter protest of Migz, which covered larger areas, and for which the Tribunal would have had to call in election results from other cities. Can you believe that? It’s been four years, and the Tribunal hadn’t even tried to secure the evidence it needed? It was still “out there”!

 Koko’s message was polite and gracious, but cynical me detects a bit of irony. In his statement quoted in the Philippine Star, he says: “I thank the SET for dedicating its full attention to my protest. It took time because of the extensive counter protest (of Zubiri). The results have been stored in their (SET) computer since 2008.” 

 Maybe I’m reading too much, but I would hazard the proposition that Koko just took a dig at the Tribunal. Doesn’t this sort of imply that while his evidence was in since 2008, it just sat there in their hard drives waiting to be appreciated? (And also, no movement on Migz’s counter protest since forever?)

 So, what kind of system is this that we have, when cheating allegations aren’t resolved until the term of the cheater has expired, and there is no more position for the cheated to fill? Koko’s case isn’t isolated. Tining Martinez’s quest for his post as Congressman, and Glen Soco’s case for his Vice-Governorship, are cases in point. Can’t we have a faster means of resolving election protests? What’s keeping these cases from being resolved with speed?

Koko has vowed he will use his remaining term to focus on electoral reform. Goodie. Let’s hope he lays a solid foundation for victims of cheaters – and maybe a more punitive system of punishment for cheats. After all, he just might need it for when he runs in two years for the same post.