Not very modest proposal November 7, 2006
ON the face of it, there’s nothing scary about Presidential Political Adviser Gabriel Claudio’s warning that the administration will thrash the opposition come election next year. That is more bluster than threat. The opposite is more than likely to be true. But that presumes we will count the votes right. That’s the truly scary part.
The administration does have superior political machinery, but that machinery isn’t given to organizing or campaigning. It isn’t even given to acts of vindication or revenge, especially after government got a sound beating from the Supreme Court on the Charter change issue. That machinery is given only to cheating. That machinery is eager to get back at the opposition not by means fair or foul but by means foul or worse.
We have seen how that machinery was put to work in 2004: it was used to siphon off all monies from government offices to pay for billboards -- yes, the same ones they now want to put down -- and an unrelenting barrage of TV ads, and to give fertilizer funds to congressmen overseeing urban jungles. Ask that big joke, Jocelyn Bolante. It was used to ransack even money of overseas Filipino workers, a good portion of the fund of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration being used to buy off voters through the PhilHealth cards that had Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s grinning face on them rather than the forlorn ones of their beneficiaries. It was used to manufacture votes in the Central Luzon area, including Metro Manila, to give Arroyo an artificial lead.
And when all that still failed, Arroyo called up Election Commissioner Virgilio “Garci” Garcillano.
That machinery has not been dismantled. That machinery exists intact, and can be employed with the same ferocity to produce the same results. We count the votes right next year, and the opposition will very likely trample all over the administration the way the Liberals trampled all over the Nacionalistas in 1971. But that is like saying that if we had counted the votes right in 2004 Fernando Poe Jr. would have, if not routed Arroyo, at least had her biting his dust. What was done before can be done again. No, more than that, what was done before demands to be done again. Getting away with murder is an open invitation to murder again and again.
What’s to prevent it? The Commission on Elections (Comelec), which played the role of conspirator rather than arbiter during the last elections, has not been revamped. No one even knows whether the canvassing will be computerized or not, which is openly courting nasty surprises at the end line, the kind Benjamin Abalos and company sprang on the unsuspecting public the last time around. I haven’t heard any furious discussions about plans to stop cheating. I have not heard any demands from the opposition for an international delegation to monitor the elections the way Cory Aquino and company did during the snap elections of 1986.
More than this, as I said some weeks ago when Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos and Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz were predicting there would be no more “Hello Garci’s” because the military would no longer be used in elections, why should that be so? The generals did not call up Garci, Arroyo did -- and she hasn’t been punished. The only way crime stops is when it is punished. Crime gets rewarded, it will riot like weeds in an untended garden. The fact that Arroyo remains president assures there will be massive cheating in next elections. Look at the nurses and see if cheating has not become the accepted norm in this country.
Which brings me to my completely immodest proposal. That is for the elections next year to be held not just as regular senatorial elections but to be turned into a presidential election. No need to call for snap elections if the problem is time and money. We can always turn the regular elections next year into a special one to resolve the problem of a fake president.
I recall that One Voice was saying at one point that the elections next year could be turned into a referendum on Arroyo. Well, we just count the votes right and those elections will be a referendum on Arroyo, whether we like it or not. But more than that, a referendum presupposes a judgment on performance, and the problem is not performance, it is legitimacy. You can never reconcile a “Hello Garci” tape, as vicious an assault on decency, never mind democracy, as you can get, with a legitimate president. It is not enough that the elections next year be turned into a referendum on Arroyo, it is imperative that the elections next year be turned into an occasion to vote for a real president.
I don’t particularly care whether we can actually do this or not. I do particularly care that we -- the elements that made Edsa People Power I and II, the institutions of society that still believe this country has a future, and ordinary citizens -- demand to have this. Our collective voice will be heard, our collective will will decree its realization. Heavenly trumpets have been known to shatter the walls of Jericho, and you can’t get more heavenly than defending freedom.
At the very least, a loud and universal call for special presidential elections next year will let it be known that we are serious about doing something about screwing the voters. No, more than that, about the deceitfulness and lying that are spreading everywhere in this country faster than karaoke. In the end, none of the safeguards against cheating will matter if there is no public vigilance against the threat and no outrage against the commission.
At the very most, well, that is the start of punishing a crime. Arroyo continues to rule this country without having won the elections, we will never have clean elections ever. That is like expecting clean elections during Ferdinand Marcos’ time.
* * *
Tonight, Tuesday, Nov. 7, Stop the Killings Bar Tour, 7th leg, at Capones, G/F Fraser Place, Valero St., Salcedo Village. Lyn Sherman, Session Road and Mojofly play. Let slip the hounds of music, rein in the dogs of war.
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=30933
The administration does have superior political machinery, but that machinery isn’t given to organizing or campaigning. It isn’t even given to acts of vindication or revenge, especially after government got a sound beating from the Supreme Court on the Charter change issue. That machinery is given only to cheating. That machinery is eager to get back at the opposition not by means fair or foul but by means foul or worse.
We have seen how that machinery was put to work in 2004: it was used to siphon off all monies from government offices to pay for billboards -- yes, the same ones they now want to put down -- and an unrelenting barrage of TV ads, and to give fertilizer funds to congressmen overseeing urban jungles. Ask that big joke, Jocelyn Bolante. It was used to ransack even money of overseas Filipino workers, a good portion of the fund of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration being used to buy off voters through the PhilHealth cards that had Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s grinning face on them rather than the forlorn ones of their beneficiaries. It was used to manufacture votes in the Central Luzon area, including Metro Manila, to give Arroyo an artificial lead.
And when all that still failed, Arroyo called up Election Commissioner Virgilio “Garci” Garcillano.
That machinery has not been dismantled. That machinery exists intact, and can be employed with the same ferocity to produce the same results. We count the votes right next year, and the opposition will very likely trample all over the administration the way the Liberals trampled all over the Nacionalistas in 1971. But that is like saying that if we had counted the votes right in 2004 Fernando Poe Jr. would have, if not routed Arroyo, at least had her biting his dust. What was done before can be done again. No, more than that, what was done before demands to be done again. Getting away with murder is an open invitation to murder again and again.
What’s to prevent it? The Commission on Elections (Comelec), which played the role of conspirator rather than arbiter during the last elections, has not been revamped. No one even knows whether the canvassing will be computerized or not, which is openly courting nasty surprises at the end line, the kind Benjamin Abalos and company sprang on the unsuspecting public the last time around. I haven’t heard any furious discussions about plans to stop cheating. I have not heard any demands from the opposition for an international delegation to monitor the elections the way Cory Aquino and company did during the snap elections of 1986.
More than this, as I said some weeks ago when Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos and Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz were predicting there would be no more “Hello Garci’s” because the military would no longer be used in elections, why should that be so? The generals did not call up Garci, Arroyo did -- and she hasn’t been punished. The only way crime stops is when it is punished. Crime gets rewarded, it will riot like weeds in an untended garden. The fact that Arroyo remains president assures there will be massive cheating in next elections. Look at the nurses and see if cheating has not become the accepted norm in this country.
Which brings me to my completely immodest proposal. That is for the elections next year to be held not just as regular senatorial elections but to be turned into a presidential election. No need to call for snap elections if the problem is time and money. We can always turn the regular elections next year into a special one to resolve the problem of a fake president.
I recall that One Voice was saying at one point that the elections next year could be turned into a referendum on Arroyo. Well, we just count the votes right and those elections will be a referendum on Arroyo, whether we like it or not. But more than that, a referendum presupposes a judgment on performance, and the problem is not performance, it is legitimacy. You can never reconcile a “Hello Garci” tape, as vicious an assault on decency, never mind democracy, as you can get, with a legitimate president. It is not enough that the elections next year be turned into a referendum on Arroyo, it is imperative that the elections next year be turned into an occasion to vote for a real president.
I don’t particularly care whether we can actually do this or not. I do particularly care that we -- the elements that made Edsa People Power I and II, the institutions of society that still believe this country has a future, and ordinary citizens -- demand to have this. Our collective voice will be heard, our collective will will decree its realization. Heavenly trumpets have been known to shatter the walls of Jericho, and you can’t get more heavenly than defending freedom.
At the very least, a loud and universal call for special presidential elections next year will let it be known that we are serious about doing something about screwing the voters. No, more than that, about the deceitfulness and lying that are spreading everywhere in this country faster than karaoke. In the end, none of the safeguards against cheating will matter if there is no public vigilance against the threat and no outrage against the commission.
At the very most, well, that is the start of punishing a crime. Arroyo continues to rule this country without having won the elections, we will never have clean elections ever. That is like expecting clean elections during Ferdinand Marcos’ time.
* * *
Tonight, Tuesday, Nov. 7, Stop the Killings Bar Tour, 7th leg, at Capones, G/F Fraser Place, Valero St., Salcedo Village. Lyn Sherman, Session Road and Mojofly play. Let slip the hounds of music, rein in the dogs of war.
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=30933
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