What were good and bad in the last elections?

Aside from the losers claiming the election was bad because they were cheated, and the winners claiming that the election was generally good especially because they won, there are actually quite a lot of good and bad things and consequences during and after the elections, that will be useful in the coming elections and for good government in general.

Philippine elections have been evolving, and with the advent of the computers and the internet, it has been evolving faster in the last two elections than in the previous last forty years. That the counting of the votes and the transmission of the canvassed votes happen in two days is a giant step that has other countries sending observers to study and evaluate if it can be done also in their countries.

While there will still hitches, like some counting machines bogging down and delayed transmissions, the percentages of these problems did not reach one percent so the automated electronic voting was an overall success.

The other good thing about the last election was the prevalence of mass media and social media which made transparency a necessary ingredient of good governance. They are stronger and more compelling this time. They made the candidates' personalities, achievements, weaknesses, strengths, track record and everything about them out in the open, including how they amassed their wealth.

The mainstream media were the more responsible purveyors of information and corrected the errors and excesses of the social media. The anonymity and the lack of accountability in the social media were responsible for the disinformation and libelous statements in the social media that we should correct and learn from in the next elections. Even before the next election, the proper and responsible use of the social media should be an object lesson for all, if we have to use it for legitimate communication and discussion in our daily lives.

In the campaign up to the last days of the election, the practice of vote buying is still a significant part. At least 40 percent of the voters are susceptible to vote buying, as 20 percent of the Filipinos are below the poverty level and there is another 20 percent above the poverty level that believes that they are entitled to the funds of the politicians, which are money from the government and are therefore in a way their money.

Depending on the location, tightness of the local election, and the wealth of the candidates, the buying price were from P100 to P500 per vote. It will take time to reduce this vote buying phenomena, and it has to do with the country's economic growth and education of its people. It will never disappear as it is the experience in all democratic countries, but it will be minimized to as low as 10 percent of the voting population.

Another thing that bothered many people in the last election is the winning of Pacquiao and Gatchalian and the losing of Osmeña in the senatorial race. It shows the shallow mentality of the voters in voting for inconsequential congressmen instead of competent and working senators. This is an invalid generalization, since more than 10 million voters selected Osmeña which means enough voters were aware of his credentials. It is just that it was not enough to make the winning cut-off.

But then people also made Robredo, Hontiveros and De Lima win, so I would like to believe that there are also enough intelligent voters out there. The culprit here is the 20 percent of the voters who are blind followers of the politicians and religious sects who voted as they were ordered. We should really start putting qualifications on who are entitled to vote, like being able to read and write, and/or who have paid income taxes. Then voting becomes a right and a privilege to be aspired.

Then there is the enlightenment aspect of the last election. If Binay never aspired and run for the presidency, will we ever know of the massive corruption in Makati City and the horrendous accumulation of wealth of the family? Will we have known of the shady deals between their family and Ongpin using the Boys Scout of the Philippines properties, or in the overpricing of everything bought by Makati City? If Binay was content to retire and let his children be Senator, Congresswoman and Mayor, he would have an uneventful and wealthy retirement.

If Bongbong Marcos did not run for vice president, would we have known that there is an orchestrated and well-funded rewriting of the stories about Martial Law and history? Would we have relived and remembered the abuses of the Marcos years and tell them to our children? My children are asking me now about the Martial Law years and I am happy to relate it to them as I had been remiss in this duty.

There are still many things wanting in our kind of democracy and our electoral process and may take more years to improve them. Still our progress have been steady and moving in the right direction that I am hopeful that with the transparency brought about by the information and communication technologies, more and better education, and a resurgence of moral and ethical values imposed by a concerned middle class, good governance principles of accountability, avoidance of conflict of interest, and transparency will prevail among most of our government officials.

It also helps a lot that there is a worldwide trend to charge and convict quite a number of government officials not only in developing countries but even in develop countries. We are among the countries that have charged presidents, senators, congressmen, justices and cabinet officials and this is good for the country and the people.