Kudos to the Comelec and the Filipino people

May 10th was indeed a day of reckoning for our country and somehow my guardian angel woke me up a full hour before my alarm at 7 a.m. could ring. Hence we huffed over to the Cebu Normal University (CNU) to vote. There were already early birds, but it wasn’t packed yet. But from getting my precinct number to finding my polling place in the CNU campus, it took me an hour and 10 minutes. I learned that my precinct 0216-A in Capitol Site was lumped with four other precincts, hence we waited in the holding area for at least 40 minutes. My wife only took 30 minutes. She was lucky.

What is very clear was something that Atty. Romulo Macalintal told us a month ago… that this election was still done manually. Until you’ve done your voting and inserted your ballots into the PCOS machine, only then does the automated polls start to kick in. There is no question that a lot of problems happened to the PCOS machines that caused the massive delay in many polling centers. The problems came later when more voters arrived and got stuck in the clustering. The problem was less from PCOS machines, but due to the clustering of polling precincts.

We can only hope that the Comelec will address or solve all these problems and have them corrected in time for the Barangay elections hopefully this October. Despite all their problems we must congratulate the Comelec for finally giving the Filipino people a credible elections.

It was amazing to see local government officials proclaimed in less than 24 hours after the polling centers were closed. As we’ve said a long time ago, the Comelec should have automated our polls a long time ago, but we stubbornly stuck it out with the old manual system. It is a fact that just a few days ago when the Comelec had smartcard glitches, there were a lot of calls for the return to manual counting. But I’m glad that the Comelec persisted and stuck it out with this new system rather than return to the manual counting that caused more electoral problems than we could remember.

While we can say that generally we had peaceful elections in Cebu, there were still a lot of election related incidents, like Bogo 100 kms north of Cebu City between Bogo Mayor Celestino “Junnie” Martinez and Rep. Ben-Hur Salimbangon. This was also a flashpoint in the 2007 elections and remains to be so in this election. Meanwhile, I’m sure that our readers are anxious to know the results of the elections in Cebu City. I can only report that in the City of Cebu, the tandem of Vice-Mayor Michael Rama and his vice-mayoralty candidate Joy Augustus Young are leading big, while Cutie del Mar and Mayor Tomas Osmeña are headed for Congress.

As for the Presidential race, as of press time, it seems that we are headed towards another Aquino presidency. This early, we congratulate President-elect Noynoy Aquino and we hope that he can steer this nation towards a better-governed nation. I just hope that he’d make good with his promise to rid this nation of corruption… starting from the Justice system.

As for the hundreds of thousands of voters especially the Green Teams from all over the country who believed that former Defense Sec. Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro Jr. was the right man to be President, I have no doubt that many of you are totally devastated and disappointed that the majority of the Filipino voters did not vote for him. Let me say that no one can take away your conviction in supporting Gibo. You have shown that you don’t need to be in a political party to be able to campaign for your candidate. 

I would like to share a text message from Rex Carampatana of the Cebu Green Team, “We won the respect and admiration of many people. We won many friends we would not imagine we would know in a lifetime. We won over our own limitations, we became so thinking, daring and forgiving. We are victorious and we deserve to celebrate!”

Indeed, I’m proud of having worked with the Cebu Green Team. in Cebu City, their fruits can be seen in this race because Gibo was second to Noynoy Aquino who had the machinery of the Bando-Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan (BOPK) of Mayor Osmeña. There was no Lakas-Kampi lineup in Cebu City, only the efforts of the non-politicians of the Cebu Green Team.

Finally another text from Mr. Kit Unchuan a Cebu Green Team supporter, “Just as winning is not everything, so also losing is not everything. We fought a good and honest fight. We gave it our all. Nobody can say we could have done more. The odds were just too great to begin with. Stand proud Green Team. It is more honorable to lose the way we did than win the other way. We bow our heads, not in shame but in grief. We lost with our boots on. Let me just say that I have never, ever worked with a group of men and women with more passion and conviction than the Cebu Green Team. Let the victors have their day. It’s now their great task to prove that they are right. Let’s move on!”

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