Cleaning the mess

All our elections have never been as clean and orderly as it should be. Somehow there are always some anomalies and illegal practices perpetrated in practically all levels from the barangay, municipality or city, province, region or nationwide. But they are usually committed by the candidates and their supporters who are all aiming to win at the polls by any and all means and at whatever costs.

In the last mid-term election however it seems that very administrative agency tasked by our constitution with the duty to enforce and administer all laws and regulations relative to the supervision and control of this political exercise, are embroiled in the mess. Never before, indeed, has the Comelec found itself answering or explaining issues coming out on the credibility, legality and orderliness of the conduct of an election, except in this last election. It looks like the Comelec has become part of the problem instead of being at the forefront of finding the solution to the problem.

Sad to say but the Comelec could have avoided its present predicament were it not for the attitude of an esteemed colleague in the profession who now heads this agency. Power must really be quite intoxicating and stimulating such that the “greater it is, the more dangerous the abuse” according to British statesman and political writer Edmund Burke. Admittedly, human as we all are, we cannot really say that we will not be like Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes II once we are also placed in his position as chief of an independent and powerful commission that proclaims winners of hotly contested elections especially with millions of discretionary intelligence fund at his disposal. “Sapagka’t kami’y tao lamang”, however, is no excuse especially in performing ones duties as a public servant.

Pressure of work could not also be an excuse because he has had enough time to get used to it or to overcome it after almost three years in office. So he should have been more open and calm by welcoming and considering the suggestions from all sides and find out if they are meritorious. Unfortunately he became so hot tempered and aggressive and treated as “enemies out to sabotage the elections”, all those expressing their concerns about the many possible malfunctions and legal questions on the use of the same second hand machines already used in the 2010 election and proven as unreliable and vulnerable to manipulations.

Apparently his problem also stems from his belief that his views as chief of the Comelec regarding the conduct of the election are the only ones correct and therefore should be followed while all the others are wrong and therefore should be ignored. This seems to be the same kind of affliction contaminating PNoy and some other officials of the present daang matuwid administration. And because of this affliction, Brillantes has imperiously ignored, or dismissed as erroneous, the views expressed by concerned sectors particularly the IT people, regarding violations of law like lack of source code review, the proclamation of winners without the results of random manual audits being submitted to the BOC, the lack of digital signatures in the election returns used in proclaiming winners, and the possible corruption of the compact flash cards showing a 60-30-10 pattern in the election returns.

His threat to resign every time questions are raised regarding his handling of the last election and the use of the machines without complying with the necessary safeguards provided by law, only inflamed even more the issues surrounding the credibility of said election and the reliability of the machines used. Daring those who have raised questions in this regard by staking his position definitely did not resolve the issues and clear the air especially when he did not make good on his threat upon the importuning of Malacañang.  Such stance only raised more doubts about his sincerity.

Chairman Brillantes may not like it, but he has only himself to blame if there is already a growing public perception that he is unseemly defending too much Smartmatic Inc., the supplier of the questionable machines used in the last elections. Of course it is understandable that he should defend his decision to purchase the said machines costing our government billions of pesos. But the recent revelations coming from the Comelec itself regarding the “variances” or “discrepancies” between the random manual poll count and the electronic results of the May 13, 2013 elections, should have spurred him to look deeper into the matter instead of immediately concluding that the discrepancies are minor or mere clerical errors of those conducting the audit. The better attitude in this regard is to tell the people that a deeper inquiry is being undertaken and that necessary suits will be filed against Smartmatic if it turns out that those machines are indeed defective. Under the law, the seller is liable for the hidden defects in the goods sold.

Hopefully, Chairman Brillantes will take all these observations as a friendly advice to help him in clearing up the mess surrounding the last election. Self righteousness will definitely not help him at all. Indeed it has even caused him to pick up a fight against the CBCP when its head, Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma, merely expressed the bishops’ sentiments that “in principle there are many valid points raised because a lot of people thought that the elections were okay, but we all know that like in music it was out of tune, which puts into question so many things”. It is not yet too late for Chairman Brillantes to swallow a little bit of his pride and allow an independent Truth Commission “to clarify the concerns of various poll watchdogs”.

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