Philippine election: More than just
numbers By Marco Garrido
MANILA - As expected, the exit polls show
Philippine presidential candidates Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo, the incumbent, and Fernando Poe Jr
neck-to-neck. Quite despite Poe's premature victory
march, an official tally will still take several weeks.
It took a month to count the votes cast in the
presidential election in 1992 and 22 days in 1998. With
the polls closed, what matters now is whether the
results will be perceived with legitimacy. There are
reasons to be worried.
Reports are piling in of
election-day foul play and foul-ups. The cheating tended
to be more "wholesale" than "retail". That is, crooked
politicians invested more in massaging the final results
through vote-padding and shaving than in purchasing
individual votes. One senatorial candidate complained
that, according to the official voters list, one Manila
shanty claimed 130 voters. Not that the old ways weren't
evident as well. Politicians on the island of Basilan
wasted little time on subtlety, sending their goons
house-to-house with lists of preferred candidates and
P500 (US$9).
But the cheating, for all its
incidence, doesn't seem exceptional for Philippine
elections. The real cause of concern is the Commission
on Elections (Comelec). The Comelec raised howls for
botching its P1 billion poll modernization plan and
having to rely instead on a contingency plan in
conducting the elections. So far the elections appear to
have been conducted poorly. Ballots and ballot boxes
have gone missing, election paraphernalia has come up
short, the indelible ink used to validate ballots has
proved to be not quite so indelible and, worst of all,
the voters list is riddled with anomalies. The list
includes dead people while excluding thousands of very
much alive registered voters.
The accumulation
of anomalies has led many to suspect something more
sinister: a systematic attempt to defraud the electorate
on the part of the Arroyo administration. A number of
military officers have given voice to these fears,
claiming that military personnel have been ordered,
under pain of reprisal, not just to vote for certain
candidates but to steal or switch ballot boxes in
certain precincts. The officers alleged that, even
before election day, "the elections were finished"; that
is, the exact tallies had already been fixed.
The officers approached the Catholic Church-led
Coalition for Honest and Peaceful Elections with this
information. When asked whether the administration was
behind the alleged fraud, coalition director Antonio de
los Reyes responded, "Is the Comelec administration? Is
the military administration?" For all the opposition's
readiness to make much of the allegations, however, they
trip on the question of why a candidate clearly ahead in
preliminary polls would resort to cheating. Wouldn't it
be in Arroyo's best interest to ensure fair and credible
elections so that her lead will translate into victory?
But then most of the allegations that have poisoned the
air during this election season have foundered upon
scrutiny.
For its part, the administration is
floating its own conspiracy theory. National Security
Adviser Norberto Gonzales warned of an opposition plot
to foment a People Power-type uprising. According to
Gonzales, the opposition would accuse the administration
of massive cheating and storm the streets in protest.
The uprising would be accompanied by blanket blackouts
and possibly even a series of bombings. Ominous as it
may sound, this scenario is harder to discount. For one,
the discovery of 36 kilograms of TNT along with the
arrest of six suspected Abu Sayyaf members in Manila
last month have kept the nation on high alert.
For another, as of 6pm on Tuesday, the
opposition has already taken to the streets. The growing
rally, heralded as "a victory march", is intended to
denounce the administration's purported manipulation of
the exit polls. "I just want to inform everyone that I'm
leading in the canvassing," Poe announced in Filipino.
"But the media quick count says otherwise." Whether or
not the rally will swell into the dreaded proportions
depicted by Gonzales remains to be seen.
But
even if it doesn't, even if it is dispersed or
dissipates on its own before becoming truly disruptive -
and even if Poe loses - Arroyo will have won only the
count. The rancor that marked the election season, and
indeed, the divisiveness that marked Arroyo's presidency
- an "accidental presidency" after all, really just the
balance of deposed president Joseph Estrada's term -
will not go away.
This election's brightest hope
is the hope of renewal; its darkest threat, the threat
of continued, self-destructive division. The odds favor
the latter. The Social Weather Station reveals a public
that would more readily believe in fair elections if Poe
won. Seventy-two percent of those polled said a Poe
victory would come about fairly, while only 57 percent
said the same for an Arroyo victory. At the same time,
17 percent said Arroyo would win by cheating, while only
5 percent said the same for Poe.
If Arroyo is to
win legitimacy, as well as the count, two stars need to
align in her favor: One, she has to win by a decisive
margin, win what she calls "the highest mandate" (which
means she better break away from Poe soon). And two, the
elections have to be perceived as a credible exercise -
not just proven as such but perceived as such by the
masses. The problem is, achieving the first makes the
second all the harder to accomplish.
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2004 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved.
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