For the first time since the Commission on Elections started tallying the votes, our newsroom received no reports yesterday of losers in the midterm elections.
All the reports were about losing candidates who were challenging the official proclamations or looming victories of their rivals.
Some of the protests surely have merit in our land of election cheaters. These protests must be properly documented so that the cheaters, especially the politicians involved, can be caught and punished. Any politician who has benefited from poll fraud must be permanently barred from holding public office.
But several other electoral protests look too much like losers’ sour grapes.
Boxer Manny Pacquiao at least finally had the good sense to concede defeat. He probably computed the cost of legal fees to mount an electoral challenge and decided – correctly – that it wasn’t worth it. Still, it took him nearly a week to publicly acknowledge that he had been knocked out in the first round by Darlene Custodio.
Elsewhere in the country, including certain parts of Metro Manila, sore losers are delaying vote counts and the proclamation of winners.
It’s a rare Pinoy politician who accepts defeat with grace. We like to joke that after every electoral exercise in this country, there are no losers, only those who have been cheated.
But it’s no longer funny when the obstinate refusal to accept defeat prevents a duly elected official from assuming his post and gets in the way of governance and public service.
It’s even less funny when the sore losers are backed by state power in sabotaging the vote count to alter the results and ensure their victory.
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We have too many politicians who become spiteful and infantile in defeat. Their attitude is that if they have lost the race, they should do their best to prevent or at least delay the winner from assuming the contested post. If ever the winner gets to assume office, the loser then plots to do everything to make the winner fail in governance. Some election protests are clearly meant to do this.
Winners should probably count themselves lucky if their rivals merely file an election protest to derail the victor’s proclamation. In some parts of the country, losers simply eliminate the winners for good.
In Taysan, Batangas, it looks like some loser ordered certain members of the regional police force to burn down the Pinagbayanan Elementary School. The crime, meant to destroy ballot boxes in the school where a polling center had been set up, killed a teacher and a poll watcher. Yesterday, a third victim succumbed to serious burns.
We haven’t seen the last of the post-election violence as sore losers refuse to concede with grace.
The threat level is highest for candidates who have defeated the incumbent, at least while the loser is finishing the final weeks of his term.
The post-election violence can drag on until the next campaign, with bitter political rivalries deepened by the results of this year’s elections.
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With only three years in the terms of the positions at stake, you’d think it would be easy for losing candidates to concede. The losers can spend the next three years preparing for the next campaign. And after all, the basic pay for public officials is dismal, and public service can be a thankless job.
But we all know that there is so much more at stake here than salaries and the opportunity to serve the public.
Conceding defeat can be unthinkable especially for political dynasties. Our culture has turned politics into a family enterprise, on which a clan’s fame, fortune, honor and entitlements are anchored.
Even three years out of power can be too long for certain political clans. Electoral defeat means the loss of too many things: fat commissions from public contracts that require no bidding, sweetheart deals for relatives and cronies, the power to appoint (and, as we like to joke, to disappoint). For certain clans, defeat means the loss of state protection for lucrative enterprises such as jueteng and smuggling.
The wife, kids and mistress will lose their bodyguards. Without the security convoys, they will have to stop for traffic lights like the rest of the hoi polloi.
Also, campaigns don’t come cheap. A campaign merely for mayor can cost several millions. It can be painful to write off that kind of investment.
Losers in the race for the House of Representatives lose up to P60 million in annual pork barrel allocations; for the Senate, the pork barrel is P200 million each. Control over that kind of funding can buy political support, which will be invaluable in a re-election campaign.
The mere loss of face from electoral defeat can be unbearable for politicians with outsize egos who can’t stand being in the same room with their rivals.
The situation is aggravated by the fact that there are also too many Pinoy politicians who can’t handle victory with grace. Victory breeds arrogance and vindictiveness in certain politicians.
Considering all these factors can eclipse any thought of conceding with grace for the greater good or in the interest of peace in the community.
For certain politicians, accepting defeat can mean their death – literally.