Not a stone upon a stone
Not a stone upon a stone
Updated 01:04am (Mla time) Oct 07, 2004
By Juan Mercado
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the October 7, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
FROM HER not-so-glorious retirement, former election commissioner Luzviminda Tancangco tried to defend the indefensible. In an affidavit she submitted to the Senate blue ribbon committee, Tancangco insisted that MegaPacific's voting machines for the May elections were best for the polls. She also lashed the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel), which sought her impeachment for incompetence. Tancangco said Namfrel chairman Jose Concepcion duped the public, as well as Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairperson Harriet Demetriou, with schemes to lease flawed counting machines from Toronto.
Is the lady serious? Or is she banking on our short memories? No issue, however compelling, can hold us for long. We shuffle on to the next headline, the seamier scam. "Scandal is not like bread," Nigerians say. "It's never in short supply."
People, however, remember the Supreme Court's 9-3-2 vote last January. That scrapped the MegaPacific deal.
The machines were "vulnerable to election fraud by means of just a few key strokes," the 101-page Court decision stated. The Comelec advanced P849,167,697 for flawed computers, fracturing its bidding rules.
"The illegal, imprudent and hasty action of the commission... desecrated legal and jurisprudential norms," the Court pointed out. The Comelec's stampede to buy the MegaPacific machines "cast serious doubt upon the poll body's ability and capacity to conduct automated elections."
The Court ordered Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo to recover the cash. He's also to "investigate the criminal liability of those involved."
Does Tancangco remember? Surely, she'll recall that the Supreme Court shredded a P6.5-billion contract with Photokina Marketing Corp. Tancangco awarded that contract for her "brainchild," the Voter Registration and Information System.
The Comelec signed although it had only roughly a fifth of the amount contracted for, the Court found out. "Null and void for lack of appropriation," it ruled.
Back in June 2002, a Cebu Daily News editorial, titled "Our Gang of Four," warned that poll modernization, required by Republic Act 8436, would crumble because of the Comelec's incompetence. "Like their Chinese counterpart, our Gang of Four are all mediocrities," said Cebu Daily News. Aside from Tancangco, the others were Rufino Javier, Ralph Lantion and Mehdol Sadain. These Estrada appointees resisted reforms, proposed by then-Comelec chairperson Alfredo Benipayo. Instead, they splurged on costly-and as it turns out, illegal-contracts.
As a result, the Comelec handcuffed over 40 million of us to primitive manual balloting in the May 2004 polls. Garbled registration lists disenfranchised thousands. Few got their identity cards on time. Massive failures require massive ineptitude.
Elections renew democratic institutions. But voting itself does not constitute democracy. Even Ferdinand Marcos staged periodic "elections" to scotch-tape a fig leaf on his "New Society" dictatorship. So does Myanmar, provided the generals tally the ballots.
Equally crucial is integrity of the count. After the election of Pope John Paul II, a then-young Jaime Cardinal Sin pointedly joshed Marcos' Comelec chairperson: "If you were in charge of counting votes at the Conclave, I'd have been elected pope."
Election reforms remain on the agenda of the country's "unfinished business," up there with budget deficits and spiraling public debt.
"The key element that saved the 2004 [electoral] process from becoming a disaster were the career officers and, above all, election officials at the ground level," says a respected former Comelec chairperson, Christian Monsod. "The vast majority did their jobs well, despite the unnecessary burden of poor leadership."
It's vital that a reelected President name commissioners who are impartial, competent and honest, Monsod suggested.
This is possible. It's been done before. We've had commissioners gifted with insight, skills and backbone in the past. Among them were the late Rodrigo Perez Jr., Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., Chairperson Haydee Yorac of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, Ramon Felipe, and Harriet Demetriou.
Despite all odds, they ensured the ballot reflected the people's will. Their work resulted in political stability. But today, we have the most brittle Comelec we've had since the puppet Marcos dictatorship.
The President ought to decentralize the operations of the Comelec. This would free career officials from hobbles clamped on by incompetent commissioners. That's for a start.
The integrity of Comelec leaders impinges on the survival of democratic governance itself. With her reelection, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was gifted by abused but patient citizens with a rare second chance to repair the damage she inflicted on a vital democratic institution.
"That window of opportunity will not come again," we wrote then. The President accepted that "rare second chance" by reappointing two patently partisan election commissioners: Virgilio Garcillano and Manuel Barcelona.
"You did not know the time of your visitation," the Master from Galilee said in that most poignant of reproaches. But did the President forget the second part of that rebuke: In you, "not a stone will be left upon stone"?
Updated 01:04am (Mla time) Oct 07, 2004
By Juan Mercado
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the October 7, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
FROM HER not-so-glorious retirement, former election commissioner Luzviminda Tancangco tried to defend the indefensible. In an affidavit she submitted to the Senate blue ribbon committee, Tancangco insisted that MegaPacific's voting machines for the May elections were best for the polls. She also lashed the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel), which sought her impeachment for incompetence. Tancangco said Namfrel chairman Jose Concepcion duped the public, as well as Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairperson Harriet Demetriou, with schemes to lease flawed counting machines from Toronto.
Is the lady serious? Or is she banking on our short memories? No issue, however compelling, can hold us for long. We shuffle on to the next headline, the seamier scam. "Scandal is not like bread," Nigerians say. "It's never in short supply."
People, however, remember the Supreme Court's 9-3-2 vote last January. That scrapped the MegaPacific deal.
The machines were "vulnerable to election fraud by means of just a few key strokes," the 101-page Court decision stated. The Comelec advanced P849,167,697 for flawed computers, fracturing its bidding rules.
"The illegal, imprudent and hasty action of the commission... desecrated legal and jurisprudential norms," the Court pointed out. The Comelec's stampede to buy the MegaPacific machines "cast serious doubt upon the poll body's ability and capacity to conduct automated elections."
The Court ordered Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo to recover the cash. He's also to "investigate the criminal liability of those involved."
Does Tancangco remember? Surely, she'll recall that the Supreme Court shredded a P6.5-billion contract with Photokina Marketing Corp. Tancangco awarded that contract for her "brainchild," the Voter Registration and Information System.
The Comelec signed although it had only roughly a fifth of the amount contracted for, the Court found out. "Null and void for lack of appropriation," it ruled.
Back in June 2002, a Cebu Daily News editorial, titled "Our Gang of Four," warned that poll modernization, required by Republic Act 8436, would crumble because of the Comelec's incompetence. "Like their Chinese counterpart, our Gang of Four are all mediocrities," said Cebu Daily News. Aside from Tancangco, the others were Rufino Javier, Ralph Lantion and Mehdol Sadain. These Estrada appointees resisted reforms, proposed by then-Comelec chairperson Alfredo Benipayo. Instead, they splurged on costly-and as it turns out, illegal-contracts.
As a result, the Comelec handcuffed over 40 million of us to primitive manual balloting in the May 2004 polls. Garbled registration lists disenfranchised thousands. Few got their identity cards on time. Massive failures require massive ineptitude.
Elections renew democratic institutions. But voting itself does not constitute democracy. Even Ferdinand Marcos staged periodic "elections" to scotch-tape a fig leaf on his "New Society" dictatorship. So does Myanmar, provided the generals tally the ballots.
Equally crucial is integrity of the count. After the election of Pope John Paul II, a then-young Jaime Cardinal Sin pointedly joshed Marcos' Comelec chairperson: "If you were in charge of counting votes at the Conclave, I'd have been elected pope."
Election reforms remain on the agenda of the country's "unfinished business," up there with budget deficits and spiraling public debt.
"The key element that saved the 2004 [electoral] process from becoming a disaster were the career officers and, above all, election officials at the ground level," says a respected former Comelec chairperson, Christian Monsod. "The vast majority did their jobs well, despite the unnecessary burden of poor leadership."
It's vital that a reelected President name commissioners who are impartial, competent and honest, Monsod suggested.
This is possible. It's been done before. We've had commissioners gifted with insight, skills and backbone in the past. Among them were the late Rodrigo Perez Jr., Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., Chairperson Haydee Yorac of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, Ramon Felipe, and Harriet Demetriou.
Despite all odds, they ensured the ballot reflected the people's will. Their work resulted in political stability. But today, we have the most brittle Comelec we've had since the puppet Marcos dictatorship.
The President ought to decentralize the operations of the Comelec. This would free career officials from hobbles clamped on by incompetent commissioners. That's for a start.
The integrity of Comelec leaders impinges on the survival of democratic governance itself. With her reelection, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was gifted by abused but patient citizens with a rare second chance to repair the damage she inflicted on a vital democratic institution.
"That window of opportunity will not come again," we wrote then. The President accepted that "rare second chance" by reappointing two patently partisan election commissioners: Virgilio Garcillano and Manuel Barcelona.
"You did not know the time of your visitation," the Master from Galilee said in that most poignant of reproaches. But did the President forget the second part of that rebuke: In you, "not a stone will be left upon stone"?
posted by Dante at 6:35 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home