THE MOUNTAINEER

A time for peace
by Edison Baddal

Election time has come and gone. Save for the senatorial bets in some places where elections were nullified or declared a failure, winners for various local positions which were contested to, could have been proclaimed by now.

In Mountain Province , winners for provincial positions were proclaimed without much fanfare two nights after election day including the district representative handily won by incumbent Rep. Victor Dominguez over three major rivals. Those in the municipal level were also proclaimed.

This goes without saying that at this juncture, the guns should have been literally silenced. The saber-rattling for the whole duration of the 45-day campaign characterized by a slew of muckraking, black propagandas and vicious recriminations drained much of the energies of contending rivals, let alone their caboodle of loyal supporters and hangers-on.

On the extreme, election-related violence snuffed out a few lives of partisans in various corners of the Cordillera. Somehow, this marred hope for peaceful and orderly elections and sullied the integrity of the electoral process though none such incident befell Mt. Province even during the feverish stage of the campaign period.

At worst, the destruction of life and property is the vicious aspect of the elections though it is no better than discrediting the personhood of one’s nemesis. Needles to say, on the spiritual and moral spectrum, not to mention the dictates of election laws and constitutional provisions, there is only room for dispassionate rules of fair play in an election.

As things stand now, not a few egos were busted by smear campaigns that flew thick and thin during the campaign. Against Rep. Dominguez, the main point of target by his opponents was the demolition of the Anglican chapel in Poblacion, Sabangan.

This was done sometime in 2006 to give way to the construction of a public sports gymnasium. The brazen act drew a lot of firestorm from the Episcopalian community then. Several campaign leaflets were floated impugning and discrediting him for impudence done to a house of worship. The diatribe and disparaging propaganda almost painted him as some sort of a devil’s advocate with a malevolent mind and tendency towards megalomania.

No less than the aggrieved Anglican clergy in the Episcopalian strongholds of Sagada and Besao lent their strident voices in the crescendo of the opposition. To all and sundry, it was a malfeasance through and through as consequent court decisions will bear out. The burning question then was: Was the demolition of the Anglican Chapel under his bold initiative enough ground to dislodge Vic Dominguez from his seemingly impregnable perch?

On the other hand, for the incumbent governor, the charge of misfeasance in the implementation of projects was rehashed during the campaign though not as loud. The main focus of the contention for the gubernatorial positions was the feasibility of the controversial proposal of Lacwasan to allocate P100,000 for each barangay.

He propounded this during the past year in the Sangguniang Panlalawigan which eventually threw rough patch in the relations between the provincial board and the governor. It is also factionalized the board. He failed to get the nod of the majority of the board members into the catchy election campaign slogan: “Barangay Muna.”

Dalog stuck to his prestigious “Prestige” campaign. The catchy acronym is written concretization of his platform that carried him during the previous elections. He subtly parlayed the tangible accomplishments that he initiated under the multi-prolonged program in his current term into a massive pile of votes over his worthiest opponent.

At this point, the failure to defeat incumbents Dalog and Dominguez after several nasty charges were hurled against them is downright surprising and awe-inspiring. The muckraking grew worse as the campaign approached the finish line.

They moved and spoke on the defensive for most of the campaign period. Anyhow, such is the downside of the incumbency. In the case of the incumbent congressman, most of his campaign sorties were spent on oral defense before the bar of public opinion.

Consequently, their ultimate victories proved one thing. Their worthy opponents are not yet fit to hold a candle against them. Nonetheless, this is not absolution by the people for whatever malfeasances they may have indulged themselves in. It is more a case of having the privilege of exercising the right to choose the less harmless alternative of the lesser evil.

Without much bustle then on how things came to be in the last elections, one truism that qualifies elections is that its result can never be clearly predictable. Anyone can win in an election, especially if one has the power to persuade, accompanied by adequacy of resources and an admirable personal resume. But the dynamics and dialects of elections is another story altogether.

Now that the smoke of battle has cleared, it is about time that the weary warriors should set aside their weaponry. For the losers, though they may have burned their boats by casting their lot into political ring, all is not lost. They still have the upcoming three years to prepare for another attempt. For the victors, it’s offering peace for their wounded opponents in their defeat. It’s hard to accept defeat after an arduous fight but non-acceptence will make it harder.

The bible says, there is a time for everything. As the time for war has concluded with the victors of the elections proclaimed, it is time to bury the hatchet.