JEDDAH, 8 June 2007 — With the announcement of a failure of elections in Maguindanao on Wednesday by the Commission on Elections, it seemed that Comelec chief Benjamin Abalos and his fellow commissioners had finally come to their senses and realized that the tampered votes from Maguindanao were too corrupted to be salvageable.
Only a few days ago, Abalos was defending the sanctity of the Maguindanao votes by insisting that junking them would be profoundly undemocratic. But wouldn’t it be more undemocratic to knowingly validate votes that we already knew were corrupted beyond redemption?
Maybe the commissioners had a sudden bout of guilty conscience, or perhaps they were just following instructions from President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who according to columnist William Esposo allegedly got a signal from her “protector” to back off from proclaiming a totally unbelievable 12-0 sweep for Team Unity senatorial candidates in Maguindanao. Although Esposo does not name the “protector” I would venture to guess that it is former President Fidel Ramos who still wields enormous power behind the scenes because of his military connections. Ramos had allegedly pledged protection to whistle-blowers of election fraud in Mindanao, which is why we saw so many witnesses stepping forward and publicly denouncing the cheating they had seen with their own eyes.
Apart from winning most of the seats in the House of Representatives and an economy that is doing well on paper, Arroyo does not have much else going in her favor. Some of her bitterest opponents have won seats in the Senate, and two of them are former coup plotters who have tried to overthrow her. Although Antonio Trillanes IV has not been proclaimed yet, he’s still in 11th place and is already calling for another impeachment bid against Arroyo in Congress. This is rather unwise, and Francis Escudero, the leader of the opposition and who has also just been elected senator, has wisely commented that now is not the time to bring this up given that the opposition is in the minority in the lower house.
Despite the opposition’s inability to mount a successful impeachment bid, and a tight hold on the House by administration, the president would be wise to see these Senate election results as repudiation by the electorate of her high-handed tactics and policies. The public has had enough of the rampant corruption in government and wants leaders that get things done and fast.
Despite the hundreds of millions of pesos spent by administration candidates, such as Prospero Pichay who admitted to spending P30 million of his own money on his campaign, the voters have overwhelmingly chosen new faces from the underfunded opposition to sit in the Senate.
Thank goodness the increasingly activist Supreme Court announced on Wednesday that it was going to step in and try and use its powers to stop the extrajudicial killings and disappearances of political activists.
That Chief Justice Reynato Puno had to vow that the Supreme Court would use all of its powers to protect civil liberties in the Philippines shows just how bad the situation has become in the country. Under the Arroyo administration the number of extrajudicial killings and disappearances have soared, including the killing of journalists. The president has vowed several times to tackle this issue aggressively but the growing number of politically motivated murders says otherwise.
Justice Puno was right in pointing out that the Supreme Court, like all courts of justice, was limited in how far it could force justice on certain situations. Much of the court’s success depends on robust evidence and credible witnesses who are willing to testify repeatedly in court.
Ideally, the Supreme Court should not have to publicly take on such an activist role, but the poor governance coming out of the Arroyo administration leaves it with no choice.
For Arroyo to prove that she has taken heed of the electorate’s desires, she should replace all of her Cabinet members, stop any more attempts at charter change, reach out to the opposition and most crucially replace all of the Comelec commissioners who have been irretrievably soiled ever since the “Hello Garci” tapes scandal in 2004.
The president should also completely computerize the electoral process, so that the chances of cheating are greatly reduced and accurate results can be had in hours instead of weeks. Former President Corazon Aquino said her wish was just that for the Philippines. If Arroyo could effectively computerize the whole electoral process in time for the 2010 presidential elections, that would be the greatest gift she could give her successor and her best achievement as a president.
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