EDITORIAL - Electoral system needs drastic overhaul

Laguna governor ER Ejercito has been ousted for overspending in the last electoral campaign. To prove he was not singled out (a nephew of former president and now Manila mayor Joseph Estrada, Ejercito is one of the leading lights of the political opposition) the Commission on Elections said more than a hundred other people who ran in the 2013 elections are also being investigated, on suspicion of committing a similar offense.

The Comelec, of course, has not released the names of these other people, thereby ensuring the perpetuation of suspicions that Ejercito may have, in fact, been singled out. It is, after all, one thing to claim a hundred people and an entirely different thing to not name even just one of them. Nevertheless, persecution of the opposition is not really the subject of this piece, no matter how tempting it is to make it so.

This piece is instead about the strangeness of Philippine election laws. As the case of Ejercito has clearly demonstrated, there is indeed an existing cap on election expenses, which limits candidates to spending something like only four pesos for every voter. Ostensibly, this is meant to level the playing field so that those who have money will not greatly outspend those who don't.

And yet -- and this is where the strangeness kicks in -- if you don't have money, you are considered a nuisance and have no business running for an elective position because you cannot afford to mount a credible campaign, or so reasons the Comelec. One cannot help but notice the Catch 22 characteristic of these conflicting and contradictory Philippine election regulations.

To reiterate, a candidate who has money cannot spend as much as he wants to or else he will be disqualified or ousted for overspending. On the other hand, a person who has no money is considered a nuisance and has no business running for public office. A candidate who has money cannot spend it. A person who has no money cannot be a candidate. Only in the Philippines does such a situation exist.

And that is not the only strange election regulation there is. There is another one that says a person becomes a candidate only when he has filed a certificate of candidacy. If he has not filed a certificate of candidacy, he cannot be considered a candidate. And yet, when he starts campaigning, he can be held liable for early campaigning, even if he has not filed a certificate of candidacy and is therefore not yet a candidate. No wonder other countries do not take us seriously.

Everything is always the product of a process. If the process is crooked and impaired, you do not expect the product to be flawless and immaculate. And that is the current state of the political affairs in this country. The political leadership is a reflection of the system that created and perpetuated it. Without any clear understanding of what we really want and where we really want to go, we will always be tentative in our actions and aspirations.