A FILIPINO government official who spoke to me recently on the condition of anonymity, admitted that the government was still wary of the possibility that votes cast by Filipinos working abroad could be tampered with to favor one party over the other. “Just imagine if a candidate got half a million votes from Filipinos living in Saudi Arabia, that’s a big chunk of votes that could win an election,” the official told me.
Despite these fears, which have been harped on constantly for the past several years, the absentee voting bills pending in both houses of Congress have several strong politicians pushing for them. One of them is Sen. Edgardo Angara, who this week said he supported giving the right to vote in Philippine elections to all Filipinos living abroad, even the undocumented ones, as long as they had not renounced their Philippine citizenship.
Interestingly enough, the same official told me that the Philippine government is even studying the possibility of allowing Filipinos in the United States to vote via the Internet. He called it “e-voting”.
At the moment everyone, from politicians to grassroots OFW groups, see the inevitability of granting absentee voting rights to OFWs. The only questions that are holding back the passing of the bill are those of election fraud and the actual mechanics of voting and counting the votes. How will OFWs vote? Through mail or at Philippine diplomatic missions abroad? Where will the votes be counted? Abroad at voting centers or back at Comelec headquarters in Manila?
OFW groups in Hong Kong have already said they wanted at least the initial counting of votes cast in that territory to be done there under their watchful eye, and not in Manila, so that no hanky panky would take place. I agree with that suggestion. Preliminary counting could be done in each country where Filipinos voted, with a final count done in Manila in the presence of election monitors taken from various OFW groups. It is a sad fact of life that it is the unpredictability of the millions of OFW votes that is causing politicians to hesitate in granting Filipinos overseas the right to vote. OFWs should have been given this right to vote years ago, but I think they will be more than happy if they get this right before June.
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Too much ‘People Power’?
Sixteen after the original People Power overthrew the Marcos dictatorship, everyone seems to be asking the same question: Is too much people power really a good thing?
Apparently not. Former presidents Fidel Ramos and Corazon Aquino both this week questioned the good of having people power revolts every time Filipinos want to oust a president. Edsa I was in 1986, Edsa II took place in January 2000 overthrowing President Joseph Estrada, and Edsa Tres took place on May 1, 2000, when Estrada supporters attacked Malacanang Palace in a day of violent rioting.
Ramos said that there should be no more people power revolts, and that Philippine political institutions should be allowed to mature and handle any crises in the future. Readers will undoubtedly remember that myself and many other newspaper columnists were saying the same thing more than a year ago when Edsa II took place. We criticized the rule of the well-organized “masses” who decided the fate of a whole nation.
It is ironic that both Ramos and Aquino are now openly questioning the appropriateness of so much power coming from street demonstrators who are hardly representative of all Filipinos. Massive street demonstrations may bring some sense of satisfaction to Filipinos frustrated with corruption in government, but their effects are limited. For real reform to take place, the Philippine government will have to look for new and better ways to govern more effectively and with much less corruption and favoritism.
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Estrada should stay home
The Philippine government should resist the continuing push for former President Joseph Estrada to be allowed to seek medical treatment in the United States. First Estrada wanted to undergo medical treatment in the US for an eye ailment, and then it was for his knees. What’s next?! Erap and his son Jinggoy must spend their days in medical incarceration dreaming up new ailments that only American doctors can allegedly cure.
Although many congressmen and senators have signed a petition asking that Estrada be allowed to travel to the US for medical treatment, I think it is clear that if allowed to do so he may never return to the Philippines, his captivity and his ongoing corruption trial.
Nearly a year after his trial began, Estrada’s lawyers have complained about the slowness of the trial. Aniano Desierto, the Ombudsman, countered that when the government tried to apply the Speedy Trial Act, Estrada’s lawyers complained that the government was railroading them.
What is really scary though, was the announcement this week that actor Fernando Poe Jr. was planning to run for president in 2004 with Estrada as his vice-presidential candidate! Various constitutional law experts have already opined that there is nothing in Philippine law that could bar Estrada from running in the 2004 elections as long as hadn’t been finally convicted of any crime. This raises the specter of Estrada possibly rising from his ashes, Phoenix-like, in 2004 and possibly forever avoiding jail time if his criminal trial were postponed several times until everyone lost the stomach to pursue it further.
Foreigners will probably laugh at such a scenario, but after writing on the Philippines for ten years now I know that anything is possible in the Philippines, especially in politics. Filipinos are far too forgiving and forget all too easily. Let’s hope that in 2004, FPJ and Estrada are not elected to the highest posts in the land. The nation has already seen what happens when someone is elected based purely on popularity. It doesn’t need to do that again.
