DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/19 May) — The current controversy surrounding the tampering of computer program codes on the automated canvassing of votes for national candidates from President down to Senators has brought to the fore issues related to our attitudes as a people on our institutions. We seem to have this tendency to take actions that would address a present and pressing situation forgetting about long-term implications on our institutions.
This tendency for short-term solutions is reinforced by our penchant – perhaps because we are still a pastoral society at heart – for seasonality in our actions. The time to prepare the field comes with the onset of the rainy season. Similarly, the time to reinforce the houses is when typhoon season arrives. Thus, when election season comes, we begin to go through the ritual of putting our electoral system in order.[]
The Commission on Elections (Comelec), the body charged with maintaining the electoral system, wakes up after two-and-a-half years of sleep between elections, yawns and groans for another three months and starts working during the last three months to prepare. We as a public then start waving our arms and jumping up and down, shouting at the top of our voices about ensuring free, peaceful and credible elections.
Elections are an important institution in the democracy as we know and practice it in this country. Our ideal for this institution is captured by four descriptives: “free”, “honest”, “credible” and “peaceful”. At this time, the honesty and credibility of elections is being put to severe stress with the tampering of the computer source code in the midst of canvassing the national votes. Protocol was breached, the changes were done without regard to transparency and due process. Comelec made it worse when it tried initially to downplay the incident only to be forced to take it seriously later when the outcry from an adamant public became louder.
The issue of the strength of our electoral institution is highlighted by the hotly-contested vice-presidential race between the leading candidates Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. and Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo. However, the framing of the public discourse has directed the spotlight to the opposing positions of a public that is already polarized by the ongoing partisan electoral exercise. The debate on the issue of cheating and who has the moral ascendancy to occupy the vice-presidential seat has sidelined the more fundamental issue of the need to strengthen our electoral institution in order to prevent future similar situations.
The debate was reduced to the issue of cheating: The Marcos camp cried “computerized cheating” charging the winning vice-presidential candidate Leni Robredo as beneficiary to foul play perpetrated by agents of the current administration. The Robredo camp defended the honesty and credibility of the canvassing, basically echoing the explanation given by the Comelec that the change in the computer code was only cosmetic and did not affect election results.
With this framing, the discourse quickly shifted into a hate campaign against Marcos junior. Many Robredo supporters asserted that Marcos has no right to complain because his family cheated the people and ravaged the country during the dictatorial rule of the Marcos patriarch. It is almost like saying it is acceptable to cheat as long as it was against the Marcoses. This double standard deals a serious blow to the stability of our institutions.
The strong determination of anti-Marcos forces especially those who laid their lives on the line in the fight against the dictatorship drives the action to block by all means possible the Marcos ascent into the vice-presidency. Early on in the campaign, there was widespread shock and alarm when it became apparent that there was growing support by an uninformed public for the candidacy of Marcos junior. Quickly, the former anti-martial law activists mounted a campaign to educate the public of the horrors of martial law. The message was loud and clear: the Marcos family from the living matriarch down to the children were direct participants and beneficiaries in the historical injustice perpetrated on the Filipino people and must be disenfranchised.
Most of the anti-Marcos campaigners supported the candidacy of Leni Robredo.
The fears of a Marcos resurgence seemed to have been confirmed when Marcos led Robredo by about one million votes in the early hours of unofficial canvassing by the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), the organization authorized to publicly release results from the Comelec transparency server.
A collective sigh of relief came from the anti-Marcos groups when overnight Robredo overtook Marcos and took the lead, albeit a tenuous one of just over 200,000 votes. When the other vice-presidential bets conceded defeat, the race was down to Robredo vs. Marcos with the former still in the lead. Leni Robredo’s rally from behind was met with jubilation in many quarters. To her public, it was triumph of good over evil. Marcos is a descendant and beneficiary of his namesake Ferdinand Marcos, martial law dictator whose claim to infamy were massive human rights violations and grand plunder of the country’s wealth. In contrast, Robredo is known as a human rights defender with strong ties to ordinary folk, especially the peasants. Her integrity is unsullied.
Until news of the tampering of computer codes broke.
Marcos was quick to the breach, shouting “cheating!”. His camp even tried a show of force in Luneta, but it fell flat on its face when only a handful loyalists showed up. For its part, Comelec came up with a simple – even simplistic – explanation about substituting the character “?” to “ñ” in the names of candidates in the national canvass. They reassured the public that the change was cosmetic and did not affect the results of the elections.
The issue, however, did not go away as wished by many. In fact, it has become as complicated as it is emotional. It doesn’t help that Comelec does not enjoy a stellar reputation for managing free, honest, credible and peaceful elections. Thus, the official explanation met with a lot of raised eyebrows.[]