Elections aftermath glitches

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

By March Fianza

Minus a complete tally, the elections are over but by the looks of it, it is still hot in many spots in the country as PCOS outputs come in to the offices of the municipal treasurers in trickles. The elections are not over until Comelec completes the counting. Sen. Koko Pimentel who is very conscious of getting the correct scores since he has been cheated in 2007 agrees.

There should be no proclamations of candidates unless the correct scores are there. But despite protests from either political camp, the Comelec proceeded in proclaiming six of the top scorers who were declared in alphabetical order, a decision that is feared as a precedent that may be used in the 2016 presidential and local elections. With this, Comelec head Sixto Brillantes threatened to resign his post anew, a typical “boy cries wolf” scenario and that this time he will really resign if the first six 6 senators he declared as winners will be dislodged by an on-going canvassing.

He was very sure that the on-going counting will no longer affect the race. Many weeks ago, Brillantes threatened to resign when certain Comelec resolutions were stopped from being implemented by TROs by the Supreme Court. I do wish the votes of the senators already proclaimed move so that people will use it as the basis for Brillantes to resign.

As I write, only 72 out of 304 canvass certificates were received by National Board of Canvassers. This represented only more than 13 million of the country’s 52 million registered voters. With that, the Comelec hastened their proclamation of were Grace Poe, Loren Legarda, Francis Escudero, Alan Peter Cayetano, Nancy Binay and Juan Edgardo Angara. Their votes were not announced and the documents they received did not show te numbers they garnered, hence, their proclamation had no basis, according to lawyer Romy Makalintal. Since certificates of proclamation always bear the number of votes cast for a certain candidate, how then were the proclaimed senators elected? 

The Comelec obviously failed to hit its target of proclaiming all the 12 senatorial candidates within two days after elections. And so it had to make an excuse and blamed the slow canvass on bad communication signal. Later, it changed its excuse and blamed the PCOS scanners and bad compact flash cards as the cause for the delay and slow count. What next will they put the blame for the slow performance of the PCOS machine?

The completeness of the election process even as it runs slow should not be covered up by rushed actions or speedy proclamations. Anyway, June 30, the time when all elected officials take over is more than a month away. But, why the hurry? We do not know.

In the Cordillera, people have known as early as four hours who their winning candidates were. But this did not stop certain candidates from hitting their opponents through radio broadcasts. For instance, one governor went on air the following morning after election day and started castigating the other camp alleging that it resorted to vote-buying, night before Monday voting.

I was informed of the report via text messaging that a motor vehicle marked with the tarpaulin posters of an LP congressional bet was going around distributing goods but my informant was very sure that the persons riding and driving the motor vehicle were definitely not LP supporters but NUP men. I do not know whether the certain governor was innocent or had knowledge of what his boys were up to.

It can work both ways. Apparently, the planned drama was executed to put the LP bets in bad light and was obviously executed to make last attempts to shift votes in favor of NUP. The plan failed as the owner of the motor vehicle heavily lost his re-election bid. Apparently too, the recent election in this region has taken a new form, a dirty one.

In Benguet, the proclamation of all winning local candidates was done Tuesday while the winners on the provincial level were proclaimed Wednesday afternoon. Aside from Congressman re-electionist Ronald Cosalan and Vice mayor-elect Bongbong Wales of Bokod, to me the happiest among the candidates who were proclaimed was none other than farmer and businessman Jack Dulnuan.

I say so because this is his first time to win in an election since he started running for many positions in the past. According to him, he tried running for governor during martial against then Fiscal Albert Caoili, my uncle lawyer Ben Fernando and Dr. Andres Bugnosen, all of whom are now in the great beyond. After his proclamation, he appeared to me as the most delighted as he narrated to newsmen an early chapter of a story of his life saying he came to Trinidad as a houseboy before he became a gardener.

His aim was to fight poverty. Indeed, he has succeeded there as he bought part of a fleet of buses formerly owned by the Dangwa family. Relative to Benguet politics, I do wish to never again see my relatives pitted against each other, especially if this will benefit other politicians.

In Baguio, it was obvious as it has been that way in the past that politicians, especially those who fear of getting rejected by the electorate, resort to distributing cash hours before election day. Guisad chairman Ferdy Bayasen described the picture as people receiving “limang daan” instead of accepting PNoy’s “matuwid na daan.”  

By the way, the Baguio people know that without a religious group’s endorsement, there was the big possibility that they woke up Tuesday morning with a fresh mandate and a new mayor in the person of Joe Molintas. That goes true with Mark Go who could have clinched the congressional seat over lawyer Nick Aliping who was fortunately endorsed by the same religious group. The elections are over. It is time to reunite and work for the betterment of our communities.

I had initial talks with congressman-elect Aliping and told him to do something about the concrete fences between the left and right lanes of Magsaysay Avenue fronting the public market and Session road. I suggested that road intersections be re-opened. Many have been permanently blocked and have prevented the riding public from having quick access to hospitals during emergencies.

That is the case with the Gen. Luna-Magsaysay road intersection and the Assumption road-Session road intersection. Despite the hitches encountered in any election, it gives us fresh hopes that development in Baguio will be done with consultation from the people. –marchfianza777@yahoo.com