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By William Depasupil, Reporter
WITH the failed efforts by the
Commission on Elections (Comelec) to automate the electoral process,
everything is back to the fraud-prone manual elections.
Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos
believes that unless and until the election system is automated,
electoral fraud will remain.
Abalos himself has expressed
belief in the existence of the so-called dagdag-bawas form of
electoral fraud, as he had also been once a victim of electoral
fraud when he first ran as mayor of Mandaluyong City back in the
seventies.
“I won in the voting but I lost
in the counting,” Abalos said. “I know how it felt to be cheated
and robbed of victory.”
“I have been a victim of
election cheating and I don’t want anybody to experience that
because I believe that if one won through cheating, there would be
no cooperation with the winning official who cheated and there will
be no unity among the people,” he added.
That sad experience, Abalos said,
is the reason he is pushing for electoral reforms and
modernization to prevent electoral fraud, citing as an example the
use of electronic transmission and automation of counting, which
were all blocked by the Supreme Court.
But under the present situation,
Abalos said, a clean, honest and orderly election could still be
achieved if everybody would vigilantly protect the sanctity of the
electoral process.
“The safeguards are the people
itself. That is why we have political parties. That is why we have
poll watchers,” Abalos said. “That is why I am asking the help
of all the politicians.”
To prevent electoral fraud,
Abalos stressed, everybody must be vigilant during the whole
electoral process, adding that at the first sign of any irregularity
one should immediately alert the concerned authorities.
Complain immediately
“Don’t wait for a candidate
to be proclaimed before filing a complaint. Complain immediately at
the very first sign of irregularity or while the votes are still
being counted or during the canvassing process,” the poll chief
said.
He explained that it would be
hard to address allegations of cheating, particularly for
candidates on the national level, if it is already in the national
canvassing. “That’s really where the lapses are,” Abalos
pointed out.
The responsibility of protecting
the sanctity of the ballot, Abalos explained, is the responsibility
of everybody, not of the Comelec alone.
The Comelec, according to Abalos,
lacks the required manpower, which is why it has to deputize
teachers during elections.
“We have only two to three
personnel in everybody municipality. You don’t expect us to be all
over the place,” he said.
Billions of pesos have already
been spent for the purpose of modernizing the election process but
not much improvement happens. The election system remains obsolete,
taking more than a month, for example, to declare the presidential,
vice-presidential and senatorial winners.
The rocky road to a modern
electoral system started way back in 2000. Some P6 billion has been
allocated for the Comelec modernization program. Of the amount, P3.8
billion was allotted for the implementation of the Voters’
Registration and Identification System (VRIS), P1.2 billion for the
automated counting and consolidation of results system and the
remaining P1 billion for other expenses like purchase of computers.
Integrated solution
The VRIS provides a comprehensive
and integrated solution for voter registration including the
development and maintenance of a secure electoral database that
would serve as the foundation for clean and honest elections.
The VRIS project was awarded to
Photokina Marketing Corp. in 2000 but it has never been implemented
despite Photokina having been issued the notice of award. The
previous Comelec leadership, former Commissioners Harry Demetriou
and Alfredo Benipayo, both discontinued the project after claiming
there had been anomalies in the bidding process. Its implementation
was also stopped by the Supreme Court.
Photokina’s winning bid was for
P6.5 billion. But Congress allotted a budget for the Comelec of only
P1.2 billion.
It is for said reason that the
Comelec, under Abalos, explored other options of implementing the
modernization program in accordance with Republic Act 8189, the law
that provides for the development and use of a technology that will
capture and electronically store the required data on registered
voters.
VRIS failure
Following the VRIS failure, the
Comelec allocated P2.3 billion in another attempt at modernization
in time for the 2004 elections. This was a voters validation system
that cost P1 billion, the automated counting and canvassing program
that cost P1.3 billion and the electronic data transmission and
consolidation of results worth P300 million.
It was ironic to note that while
the Comelec was trying to modernize the election system to prevent
electoral fraud and come out with a clean and honest election, its
modernization program was always tainted with accusations of fraud
and violations of law as in the case of the VRIS and the
controversial automated counting machines.
Party to fraud?
Allegations were also made that
the Comelec was a party to the alleged massive electoral cheating in
the May 2004 elections. In fact, Comelec Commissioner Resurreción
Borra admitted before a Senate committee that there was cheating in
the 2004 elections.
Abalos, however, reasoned out
that Borra was quoted out of context even as he said that he could
not say with authority if the May 2004 election was clean or not
“unless facts are presented to us.”
He admitted though that the
electoral process in the country is far from perfect, which the
Comelec is trying to address despite limited resources.
Abalos had also blamed the
Supreme Court for the mess the commission has gotten
into while trying to modernize the country’s electoral process as
mandated by law.
“Hindi lang naiintindihan ng
taongbayan. Lahat ng mga pangarap ko, lahat naunsiyami dahil sa
Korte Supremang sobrang pakikialam sa administrative authority ng
Comelec, [The citizenry just doesn’t understand it. All my vision
for clean and efficient elections are frustrated because the Supreme
Court interferes too much in the administrative authority of the
Comelec,],” Abalos said. “Never mind [if as a lawyer I
would be penalized by the Supreme Court]. I’m just saying the
truth.”
To be continued
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