GOTCHA, Published in The Philippine Star, Wednesday, January 9, 2008
National Security Adviser Bert Gonzales first said it five months ago: the Commission of Election is the worst threat to internal security. It should be news when Malacañang’s chief strategist talks that way about the almighty poll body. Few paid heed, however, when Gonzales raised the alarm back in Aug. 2007. Will people finally listen now that he is doing so anew?
It was three months past the May 14 congressional-local voting when Gonzales lanced the Comelec. He chose an apt occasion: the 44th foundation day of the
Comelec mismanagement of the 2004 and 2007 elections eroded what little faith Filipinos had left for American-style democracy. Voters no longer knew for sure if their candidates had won. Some influential groups shouted their voices hoarse denouncing election fraud, to no avail. Others began to question the very point of elections, citing the supposed stability of closed societies with “benevolent dictators”. Communist propagandists deftly took the opportunity to belittle Philippine “demo-crazy” as only for the rich and powerful “bureaucrat capitalists”. With belief in the system dwindling, the threats to the State intensify.
Gonzales knows only too well the dynamics of internal strengths and stresses. He advocates a total revamp of the Comelec and the vote structure in order to restore people’s trust in the system. “Maintaining the status quo in the Comelec would further threaten democracy,” Gonzales foresees. “We need to introduce changes, and we must do it right.”
Gen. Jose Almonte, Gonzales’ predecessor in the Ramos tenure, also had sought wide-ranging poll reforms in Dec. 2002. “We will have elections in less than two years,” he said then, “we have very little time left to amend our election laws.” Almonte wanted faster ways to cast and count ballots, among others, in order to stop the perennial dagdag-bawas (vote padding-shaving).
Nobody listened to him. The 2004 ballot result was at first quietly accepted. But a year later the Garci Tapes exposed lurid chats during the canvassing between Garcillano and winning presidential bet Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Since then, Arroyo’s mandate has been in question. Garcillano has not satisfactorily explained his yearlong disappearance, which Bedol is now mimicking. The political opposition has thrice attempted to impeach Arroyo, and will do so every year till her term ends in 2010. Military and police generals acknowledge that putschists continue to plot her destruction. Plain for all too see is the instability wrought by the weak, fraud-prone electoral system.
Of late there has been a sudden surge of positioning by presidential hopefuls in 2010. Gonzales advises that instead of politicking, they help find ways to make the 2010 election clean and credible. He also suggests the naming of a good replacement not only for Abalos (who resigned in Oct.), but all the commissioners as well. The commission has taken on the habit of asking suppliers, “How about Eddie?” If asked who the guy is, they’d reply, “E di kami (us of course).”
Reforming elections will take many phases. Not only the governing commission needs changing, but the field and office managers and staff too. At least five of Garcillano’s dagdag-bawas operatives have been promoted in the past two years; they have trained second-liners who, unless rooted out, will sell their special services to politicos in 2010. The legal office has to be rid of manipulators who sold party-list congressional seats at P20 million apiece. The bids-and-awards unit must be made to account for overpriced but substandard supplies.
