EDITORIAL - Forget the side issues. Focus on poll automation

The Comelec has identified two presidential candidates who it said could be disqualified for having oversized posters placed in undesignated areas. These presidential candidates are Richard Gordon and Eddie Villanueva.

The Comelec may as well be talking of everybody else since violations pertaining to size and location of campaign materials are being committed by everybody without exception, including candidates for local positions. And we say that without fear of contradiction.

Now, if the Comelec were to go after just two, three, twenty or a hundred out of the huge ocean of violators, that would be most unfair, isn't it? On the other hand, unfairness in an already unfair world is actually the least of our worries.

Of far greater concern is the distinct possibility of those being singled out rising up in protest and causing the kind of trouble the Comelec neither has the capability nor the time to address without causing irreparable damage to the electoral system.

Besides, having embarked on poll automation for the very first time, in an election that is already controversial even before a single ballot has been cast, one would have thought that the Comelec would devote all of its time making sure the new system works with credible success.

Not that the Comelec should abandon its other duties, but given the kind of politics played in this country, it has long been amply proven that the poll body simply isn't equipped to handle more than one huge problem at the same time with a result that is acceptable to everybody.

That being so, the Comelec should line all its problems according to scale and pick the one that, in a manner of speaking, is a "matter of life and death for Filipinos," and deal with it as an item of first and utmost priority.

And among the problems we can see for the Comelec, it is the matter of poll automation that we believe falls into the "matter of life and death" category for all Filipinos. It is the one from which we may emerge permanently scarred or damaged if not handled properly.

If Comelec focuses on poll automation, the chance is great it can make the system work to everyone's satisfaction. Only then can it deal with lesser issues. Campaign material and spending violations will not make this country collapse. But a failed poll automation elections can.