No losers, only victims of cheating

In our country, there are no losers in any election. Candidates who do not win invariably claim they are only victims of cheating. This is supposed to be a joke that has been told and retold every election. But actually however, most people believe this is true. And they may have some bases for their belief obviously because public perception has already been formed that fraud is rampant in the voting and counting of the ballots every time we have elections.

This impression sprouted significantly during the snap election called by the late martial law dictator Ferdinand Marcos in November 1985. Despite the NAMFREL count showing that Cory Aquino won the election, his men tried to rig the official count triggering the walkout of the computer experts from the counting room in PICC that eventually led to the EDSA people power revolution in February 1986 driving Marcos away from Malacanang and onto Hawaii, USA.

Since then, this public perception of having dirty elections persisted and grew. The presidential election in 1992 when Miriam Defensor Santiago narrowly lost to Fidel Ramos in the official count also raised lots of doubts apparently because of the alleged manipulations undertaken in Sulo hotel by some Ramos boys.

Then, while Estrada overwhelmingly won in 1998, doubts still linger about the authenticity of the results. And these doubts persisted, thus triggering another EDSA type people power revolution that forced Estrada to leave Malacanang and catapulted Gloria Arroyo (GMA) into the presidency.

And when GMA ran to succeed herself in the 1994 elections, fraud and cheating in our elections seemed to have been confirmed as a fact and not only as a public perception because of the “Hello Garci” taped conversations exposed in a Congressional investigation. This scandal obviously triggered the enactment of the Automated Election Law by Congress in time for the 2010 elections.

Unfortunately, even if our elections were already automated, it appeared that the machines used in the voting and counting, or the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) have several defects and glitches discovered after the election, thus heightening the prevailing public impression that, with use of the PCOS machines, cheating has become more massive and harder to detect. So the 2010 elections where P-Noy allegedly won has been humorously described as “hocus picos,” a variation of “hocus pocos” or the common way of hoodwinking and deceiving people. With the continued use of PCOS machines in the 2013 mid-term elections, the public perception about the existence of fraud in our elections continued to grow.

So in the 2016 elections last May 9, several steps have been undertaken by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) under a new chairman, to ensure that fraud and cheating will be eliminated under the automated election system. While the same supplier (Smartmatic) supplied the additional machines called Optical Mark Reader (OMR), the new Comelec chairman committed to strictly apply and comply with all the safeguards provided by the automated election law for an honest count and credible results.

And so it seems that in the last elections, no fraud has been committed in the casting and the counting of the ballots. The quick count conducted by the PPCRV of the sixth copy of the election returns churned out by the machines and directly transmitted to it coincided more or less with the official canvass conducted by Congress acting as the National Board of Canvassers (NBC). In fact the NBC already proclaimed Rodrigo Duterte as President-elect and Leni Robredo as the Vice President-elect.

Unfortunately however, Bongbong Marcos II who ran for vice president cannot graciously accept his defeat. He insists that the last election has been tainted with fraud and massive cheating. Actually he has even admitted that the election of his friend and ally, Rodrigo Duterte, is also tainted with fraud! Even without any solid proof to back up his allegations, he has bombarded the social media with baseless claims that he was cheated of victory. To appear more credible, he has even prematurely and unnecessarily announced that he will file an election protest. A losing candidate who has proof that he is cheated will just wait for the right time to file a protest.

Apparently Marcos II is trying to resuscitate, enkindle and intensify the public perception that the last elections are as fraudulent as the past elections so that when he files his protest, his allegations are already accepted as true by a lot of people especially the young and gullible. The irony here is that this public perception about how dirty our elections are first came about during the snap election called by his father who wanted to retain power. Now he is using it in trying to regain power.

Of course, it cannot really be claimed that the last elections was completely clean and honest. There are indeed so many dishonest means used by candidates to win votes. Most common here is rampant vote buying especially from the poor and needy of the country comprising about 90 percent of our voting population. It is common knowledge but hard to prove that candidates overspend to buy votes during the campaign period. Apparently, the Comelec does not have adequate staff and the necessary wherewithal to enforce the law in this regard. So even under an automated election, it cannot really be claimed that our elections are clean, honest and orderly.

The inability of the Comelec to enforce our election law nationwide is the problem that must be addressed. One remedy coming to mind right now is to decentralize the Comelec and distribute its powers and functions in different regions of our country. In other words, the Comelec will no longer be a national government commission. Each province or city should have its own Comelec to enforce the election law in their respective jurisdictions. This is where federalism fits very well. But that is another topic for future discussion.

Email: [email protected]