(Farewell to manual elections)

IN celebration of the 71st anniversary of the Commission on Elections, let me share the poem I composed sometime in 2005. It was then the 65th or retirement anniversary of the Comelec. I have recited this in some of my lectures on automated elections. As we celebrate the 71st anniversary today, August 22, 2011, there is a Wage Fight Forum organized by some Comelec employees.

On a personal note, I am also currently struggling to perform my additional tasks as a member of the Comelec-DOJ Preliminary Investigation Committee. I say “additional” although my regular functions as Director IV of the Law Department have been wrested from me and given to another who was newly re-assigned to the Law Department on August 15, 2011. They say I am “re-assigned” to the Comelec-DOJ Preliminary Investigation Committee. I have been deprived of my supervisory powers over my staff, documents, election offense cases, legal opinion queries and other functions in the Law Department. Allegedly, this will go on until October 31, 2011 only. ATTENTION, Civil Service Commission and Career Executive Service Board: Is this the meaning of re-assignment and security of tenure?

Hence, as I recite the poem below, I recite it with passion because the war against corruption and election fraud has a long way to go. It has started with technology, but it has to begin yet with the human element.

For COMELEC’S 71st ANNIVERSARY, 1940-2011

Shamed by the sounds of Garci tapes, he hides
behind his box - a ballot box once pride!
Vacuum of seventy-one years in his eyes,
He looks back: “democracy, where art thou?”
Oh countrymen, who made him to despair?
So down and weeping, wishing to retire?
Traumatized and withdrawn, limping away . . .
Who softened his will, pulled away his teeth?
Whose is the pen that will plan his return2?
Whose inspiration will paint his canvas3?

Was he that friend during the seminars
When we studied honest elections
With help of PNP and AFP
To get true votes amidst tranquility?
Was it Namfrel who dreamed with him before
Or PPCRV which prayed with him?
He is the most pitiful creature now
Left and downtrodden by politicians,
Having been used, nothing now more shrunken
Most haunted by ghosts of democracy!

How far he has gone from the ballot box!
Counter of votes cast, what to him was Math,
Or transmission of results by via satellite?
What the automated counting machines,
The speed of light, the snap of a finger?
for though all new technologies combine
If the ruler of this dark world declines
He is adjudged sick, my friend; doctor comes
And operates on him: the golden hand!
Spit upon, castrated, and dying,
Declare to oppressor the fearless truth!

President, secretaries, congressmen
Is this the Comelec you have nurtured
This brethren fallen, shaken and beaten?
Is this your gift to the Filipino
To serve as bulwark of democracy?
How will you ever restore his dignity
Wash away the shame and duplicity
Correct the wrongs, open eyes, heal the wounds,
Make him dream again and sing the music
Of the people’s choice for this Republic?

Chairman, commissioners and directors,
How will history regard Comelec?
After 71 years, where is honest election?
How will it be with you, and with her
When these rank and file and common tao
Shall rise to judge the institutions
If those were fraudulent elections!?

1 Inspired by Edwin Markham’s “The Man with the Hoe”
2 Or Election Return
3 Or Certificate of Canvass