EDITORIAL - Reverse flow

The Comelec is reportedly puzzled by the deluge of people wanting to register for the SK and barangay elections in October. The deluge caught the Comelec by surprise. Undermanned and lacking any system to overcome inefficiency, the result was pure chaos.

Personnel shortages, inefficiency and the lack of a system are matters that only the Comelec itself can hope to address. As to its puzzlement over the deluge of people in last week's week-long registration, it may need a little help to be enlightened.

The Comelec needs to be told that the deluge of people represented the reverse flow of voters uprooted for the 2013 elections. After the exodus for the senatorial elections would naturally come the counter exodus for the SK and barangay elections. It is simple physics and economics.

Here's a hint -- given the kind of choices people have for leaders, it should be surprising why people even care to vote at all. But they do, and in numbers that puzzle even the Comelec. So there has go to be more than just a simple eagerness to make choices among the unchoosable.

And the only reason that can compel people to wake up at dawn and line up till afternoon, only to fail to make the cut and thus come back again the following dawn to wait till the following afternoon, is the pecuniary benefit one expects from it all.

Surely you do not think a person would go through all that trouble just to vote for an SK chairman or a barangay councilor. Clearly there is something in all of this than just the matter of choosing a leader and everybody knows what it is.

If one didn't know any better, the temptation is great to consider the deluge as the great awakening, that finally, as evidenced by their zealousness and persistence, the Filipino people have finally been given a great choice of leaders worthy of their sacrifice.

Alas, the deluge had nothing to do with leadership excellence. The deluge was a removable fixture in a rotten game, where winning is everything and qualification is nothing. You want to win, go get the voters. The massive electoral diaspora of cheating has begun.