Numbers games - SKETCHES By Ana Marie Pamintuan

When we heard that there would be a recount in the US presidential race, our initial reaction was that it was like Philippine elections – parang Pilipinas! And when we saw that lawyer from Vice President Al Gore’s camp complaining of irregularities in the vote count in Palm Beach, Florida, we again exclaimed, "Just like in the Philippines!" Should we send them Jose Concepcion and Guillermo Luz of the National Movement for Free Elections? Or the engineers and beneficiaries of the vote-shaving scheme called Oplan: Dagdag-Bawas?

We couldn’t resist the comparisons: if we had a race as tight as the one in the United States, by now there would be rallies in the streets, with opposing camps lobbing shrimp paste or bagoong bombs at each other. Every senator and congressman would be shooting his or her mouth off, and both sides would be crying poll fraud. Every survey firm would jump into the fray, announcing conflicting results and adding to the confusion. There could be riots and even some fatalities in drunken brawls.

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Apart from these comparisons, there are many who are fascinated by the idea that in the world’s bastion of democracy, the popular mandate may be overruled by an electoral college. And if no candidate gets a majority of the electoral votes, the House of Representatives gets to choose the president – a system that benefited Thomas Jefferson in 1800 and John Quincy Adams in 1824. This is enshrined in their Constitution, which Gore has vowed to respect in case he loses Florida – and the presidency.

Joseph Estrada’s rise to power has made national leaders consider ways of picking the head of government with more discernment, without subverting democracy or thwarting the people’s will. There are those who can barely contain their frustration that the nation’s destiny for the next three generations may be in the hands of show biz fans and male chauvinist school dropouts enamored with a fellow kanto boy.

You can be sure tomorrow’s rally in Rizal Park will have a huge turnout, considering that the El Shaddai and Iglesia Ni Cristo will be there. They voted for Erap and, like long-suffering First Lady Loi, are standing by their man. Surely Bro. Mike Velarde of El Shaddai will never admit that he has been a dismal failure as the President’s spiritual adviser, that he is partly to blame for the national crises we now face.

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National leaders are also considering reforms that will make it easier to change the head of government before his term is over with minimum disruption in public affairs. As Fidel Ramos famously said, six years is too short for a good president but too long for a bad one.

With the current Malacañang occupant, even two years seems like an eternity for us, and the thought of four more years is a nightmare. If President Erap hangs on to power till 2004, that popular text joke may come true: the exchange rate will finally become one is to one – one dollar for one kilo of peso bills, probably in thousand-peso denomination.

There are those who are now mulling a return to a four-year presidential term with one re-election, the same as in the US. At least if the masses pick a corrupt and greedy moron with many families to feed and shelter simply because he’s popular, four years isn’t too heavy a national cross to bear. If, on the other hand, his on-the-job training turns out to be productive, if he reforms and becomes an accomplished chief executive, then re-election will be his bonus, a reaffirmation of the people’s satisfaction with his administration.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr., on the other hand, is pushing for a shift from presidential to parliamentary system, where the prime minister can be unseated anytime by a no-confidence vote of his peers.

But any change in the present system will naturally require amending the Constitution, so forget it. There’s enough unrest in the streets without people fighting over Charter change again. In the meantime, we’re at the mercy of numbers games – in rallies, in Congress, in elections.

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ONLY IN RP: If the Philippine National Construction Corp. wants to encourage motorists to use the e-pass, it should first get its act together. The system has further slowed down traffic at the toll plazas. You have to pay P1,000 for the e-pass kit that will be installed in your vehicle. When your pre-paid passes run out, you need to do some serious searching before you can find a Shell station with available replenishment. Must the public also wait for 2004 before this system is improved?