No will, no way October 17, 2006
I REMEMBER again something from my tour of Germany in late 2002 to observe the elections there. A political expert had just given us an overview of the dynamics of elections in that country and opened the floor to questions. I wondered why no one was asking a question that seemed, from where I stood, to be the most obvious one. So I rose to ask it: To what extent did cheating happen in German elections?
The speaker reacted to my question in exactly the same way a Japanese political officer would later react to my question if any political figure in Japan had ever switched parties. He found it near-incomprehensible. He paused, trying to digest the concept. After a while he said, “Well, there’s this small village in the former East that raised complaints of cheating during the last elections. I think that was solved by the voters being made to vote all over again.”
In this country, the one question we would find near-incomprehensible, which would make us scratch our heads and answer only after a long pause, is: “To what extent are our elections clean?” One can always point to some brave school teachers who report cheating or who guard election boxes with their lives, but that is all. Indeed, what makes their action stand out is the fact that we expect cheating to happen -- a thing that transforms simple acts of honesty into rare displays of courage.
Other countries have internalized not cheating in elections to a point of instinct, which translates verbally into, “It’s just not done.” We have internalized cheating to a point of instinct, which translates verbally into, “There’s no such thing as clean elections.”
I remember, when I was trying to quit smoking ages ago, reading something that made a tremendous impact on me, which was that not smoking was just as powerful an instinct, if not more so, than smoking. If you could just quit smoking for a while, the instinct of not smoking would take over and stop you from smoking again. I did, and it did.
I figure the same is true of cheating in elections. The fact that cheating does not occur at all or as resolutely in elections in other countries must show that not cheating is just as powerful an instinct, if not more so, than cheating. I wonder when we can stop cheating in elections, for the instinct of not cheating to kick in.
These thoughts were sparked by the sight of people preparing for next year’s elections, which I’ve been seeing more and more frequently of late. It’s good that the party-list groups in particular are doing so themselves (heaven knows Congress can do with some addition of decent people in its ranks). But my question is: What guarantee is there those preparations will not be for naught? Or more pointedly, what guarantee is there that administration candidates won’t cheat the hell out of the voters the way their boss did in 2004?
So far all we’ve done is look at the technical aspects of trying to stop cheating. The Commission on Elections has already announced that the military will no longer be used extensively in elections, as though cheating were more the province of the military than the civilians. Just as well, Dick Gordon’s committee seems bent on finding ways to computerize next year’s elections, something that should have been done the last time, except that Benjamin Abalos messed it up and got rewarded for it.
I have no problems with these initiatives and applaud them. We can do with Hermogenes Esperon and the other generals, who are mentioned in the “Hello, Garci” tape as having participated electoral fraud, never having anything to do with elections again. I wouldn’t even mind if they were forbidden on pain of the firing squad from ever uttering the word “vote” or “election” again. And we most assuredly can do with computerizing canvassing. The longer the counting takes, the bigger the cheating gets.
But we’re looking only at the way and not the will. The concept still remains: Where there’s a will there’s a way. The reverse is not always true: Where there’s a way there’s a will. And there’s the very big rub. As far as will goes, two things stand formidably in the way of clean elections in 2007.
The first is: What’s to deter administration candidates from openly, flagrantly and forcibly stealing the vote? As the 2004 elections show, that is a crime for which there is no punishment. Indeed, as the 2004 elections show, that is a deed for which there is much reward. To this day Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who stands indicted by the “Hello, Garci” tape, serves as president of this country. Indeed, far more than that, today Arroyo, whom the majority of Filipinos believe is not the rightful president of this country, feels free to remove from office officials whom the voters did vote for. But I’ll have more to say about that in days to come.
The second is: What’s to deter cheating in general when the citizens themselves expect cheating to be done and are resigned to accept its bitter fruit? What happens when political analysts forecast the victory of certain candidates on the expectation he or she will cheat, and pass that off as though it were the most natural thing in the world, part of the “dynamic” or “realpolitik” of local elections? What happens when the bishops or archbishops themselves teach the faithful that everyone cheats in elections, let’s just accept the cleverest or most ruthless among them? What happens when the citizens themselves become so cynical that they figure they might as well sell their votes because those votes are not going to be counted anyway, they might as well get money for nothing?
We’re only looking at the ways to stop cheating in elections, we’re not looking at the will to stop cheating in the elections. As far as I know the principle still is:
No will, no way.
* * *
Tonight, the Stop the Killings bar tour stops at Newsdesk, 8 Scout Madrinan St. corner Scout Tobias St. Bagong Dugo, Susan Fernandez and Gougou will be playing there. Show starts at 9:30. Be there, you’ll do better than kill time.
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=27027
The speaker reacted to my question in exactly the same way a Japanese political officer would later react to my question if any political figure in Japan had ever switched parties. He found it near-incomprehensible. He paused, trying to digest the concept. After a while he said, “Well, there’s this small village in the former East that raised complaints of cheating during the last elections. I think that was solved by the voters being made to vote all over again.”
In this country, the one question we would find near-incomprehensible, which would make us scratch our heads and answer only after a long pause, is: “To what extent are our elections clean?” One can always point to some brave school teachers who report cheating or who guard election boxes with their lives, but that is all. Indeed, what makes their action stand out is the fact that we expect cheating to happen -- a thing that transforms simple acts of honesty into rare displays of courage.
Other countries have internalized not cheating in elections to a point of instinct, which translates verbally into, “It’s just not done.” We have internalized cheating to a point of instinct, which translates verbally into, “There’s no such thing as clean elections.”
I remember, when I was trying to quit smoking ages ago, reading something that made a tremendous impact on me, which was that not smoking was just as powerful an instinct, if not more so, than smoking. If you could just quit smoking for a while, the instinct of not smoking would take over and stop you from smoking again. I did, and it did.
I figure the same is true of cheating in elections. The fact that cheating does not occur at all or as resolutely in elections in other countries must show that not cheating is just as powerful an instinct, if not more so, than cheating. I wonder when we can stop cheating in elections, for the instinct of not cheating to kick in.
These thoughts were sparked by the sight of people preparing for next year’s elections, which I’ve been seeing more and more frequently of late. It’s good that the party-list groups in particular are doing so themselves (heaven knows Congress can do with some addition of decent people in its ranks). But my question is: What guarantee is there those preparations will not be for naught? Or more pointedly, what guarantee is there that administration candidates won’t cheat the hell out of the voters the way their boss did in 2004?
So far all we’ve done is look at the technical aspects of trying to stop cheating. The Commission on Elections has already announced that the military will no longer be used extensively in elections, as though cheating were more the province of the military than the civilians. Just as well, Dick Gordon’s committee seems bent on finding ways to computerize next year’s elections, something that should have been done the last time, except that Benjamin Abalos messed it up and got rewarded for it.
I have no problems with these initiatives and applaud them. We can do with Hermogenes Esperon and the other generals, who are mentioned in the “Hello, Garci” tape as having participated electoral fraud, never having anything to do with elections again. I wouldn’t even mind if they were forbidden on pain of the firing squad from ever uttering the word “vote” or “election” again. And we most assuredly can do with computerizing canvassing. The longer the counting takes, the bigger the cheating gets.
But we’re looking only at the way and not the will. The concept still remains: Where there’s a will there’s a way. The reverse is not always true: Where there’s a way there’s a will. And there’s the very big rub. As far as will goes, two things stand formidably in the way of clean elections in 2007.
The first is: What’s to deter administration candidates from openly, flagrantly and forcibly stealing the vote? As the 2004 elections show, that is a crime for which there is no punishment. Indeed, as the 2004 elections show, that is a deed for which there is much reward. To this day Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who stands indicted by the “Hello, Garci” tape, serves as president of this country. Indeed, far more than that, today Arroyo, whom the majority of Filipinos believe is not the rightful president of this country, feels free to remove from office officials whom the voters did vote for. But I’ll have more to say about that in days to come.
The second is: What’s to deter cheating in general when the citizens themselves expect cheating to be done and are resigned to accept its bitter fruit? What happens when political analysts forecast the victory of certain candidates on the expectation he or she will cheat, and pass that off as though it were the most natural thing in the world, part of the “dynamic” or “realpolitik” of local elections? What happens when the bishops or archbishops themselves teach the faithful that everyone cheats in elections, let’s just accept the cleverest or most ruthless among them? What happens when the citizens themselves become so cynical that they figure they might as well sell their votes because those votes are not going to be counted anyway, they might as well get money for nothing?
We’re only looking at the ways to stop cheating in elections, we’re not looking at the will to stop cheating in the elections. As far as I know the principle still is:
No will, no way.
* * *
Tonight, the Stop the Killings bar tour stops at Newsdesk, 8 Scout Madrinan St. corner Scout Tobias St. Bagong Dugo, Susan Fernandez and Gougou will be playing there. Show starts at 9:30. Be there, you’ll do better than kill time.
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=27027
posted by dqfan06 @ 9:20 AM
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