Babe's Eye View article

It seems like there's a new "Garci" in our midst in the person of Lintang Bedol, Comelec's provincial supervisor for Maguindanao. Despite threats of imprisonment, Bedol—dubbed as the new face of alleged election cheating—continues to embarrass his superiors with his belligerent refusal to show up and explain the loss of certificates of canvass in his office.

Yesterday it was Garci, today it's Bedol; tomorrow it could be Lindol or some other face that will cast doubts on the elections. When are we ever going to learn? Accusations of cheating have been around us for so long and the last one—the Garci controversy—almost brought this country to its knees.

The recent election is again clouded by so many questions and suspicions of irregularity. If this is an indication of what's going to happen in 2010, we might as well be ready to write off this country. The very basic tenet in any democratic system is the conduct of honest elections and the legitimacy of elected leaders.

We're already experiencing an economic upsurge, and there is so much interest today from a lot of foreign investors. All it takes is another election whose credibility will not be accepted by the people and worse, the international community and we're back to zero.

It's unfortunate that the victory of Migs Zubiri in Maguindanao is being tainted by allegations of irregularities because of the ineptitude of Comelec officials. Both Koko Pimentel and Migs deserve to be in the Senate, but as usual, because of the controversy surrounding the Maguindanao tally, there will be all kinds of suspicions of "dagdag-bawas" or other irregularities.

That is why Fred Lim's suggestion to declare the 13th man a winner should be considered. Unfortunately, there are legal constraints since the situation today is different from that of Tito Guingona's who vacated his senate seat for the vice presidency months ahead of the 2001 senatorial elections, resulting in the re-election of Gringo Honasan who was in the 13th spot.

First of all, there should be a law to compel a senator to automatically vacate his position once he runs for another office. This will avert senate vacancies and make it easier to decide in cases similar to Zubiri and Pimentel today. It's quite ironic that Koko is in the same situation faced by his father Nene Pimentel in 1995 when he claimed to be the victim of a "dagdag-bawas" operation that allegedly benefited Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile.

What should be first in the agenda of the May election winners—since they are all victims of irregularities one way or the other—is to carry out electoral reform in this country. If GMA wants to leave a legacy, then the first thing she should do is to make sure that electoral reform is actually carried out and make it the legacy that people will remember her for. Sad to say the performance of the Comelec has been very poor and its credibility almost zero. Perhaps they should change "Comelec" because it has become so tainted.

It's time to look for solutions to these never ending election problems, and the only way seems to be automation. GMA already signed RA 9639 into law last January which is an amendment of RA 8436 or the election modernization law. RA 9639 provides for fully automated elections in 2010 and its provisions include pilot testing in selected areas in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao during the May elections and the electronic transmission of results from the precinct straight to Congress.

But instead of carrying out these provisions, Ben Abalos hemmed and hawed, giving all sorts of excuses on why it cannot be done. The election of Antonio Trillanes is an indication that we're not yet "out of the woods." We can see that people—in spite of Trillanes being charged as a coup plotter—are listening to the grievances of the likes of Trillanes and are clamoring for reform in government.

That's why Congress should put electoral reform on top of its list to prepare for the 2010 elections. It's bad enough we have a multiparty system where more often than not, we have a minority president even if he/she gets 10 million votes during a presidential election. No doubt, we have the opportunity to move this country forward especially with the present economic upsurge, but first we have to do something about the elections and learn from all the mistakes in the past.

I'm told by my sources that in the next couple of weeks—before the end of July—the fate of our friend Joseph Estrada will be determined. After being in detention for almost six years, I certainly hope there will finally be a resolution to this issue, and one that will bring about some form of reconciliation. The result of the recent election proves that Erap Estrada continues to have political clout. He was unconstitutionally removed, but hopefully we can put this thing behind us and really start to move forward.

Economic reforms have certainly borne fruit with the present economic structure, but political and electoral reforms are very basic concerns that we need to address. If we can do this, we can become a first class, first world country that many of us would like to see—not in 20 years as GMA envisions but perhaps even sooner, maybe in 10 years.

As George Santayana said, "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." The problem in this country is that we've had so many lessons in the past, and yet we continue to repeat the same mistakes and never learned from them. The big question is—when will we ever learn?