‘A national disgrace’

There you are. In an editorial yesterday, the Financial Times – primarily based in London but published worldwide simultaneously on four continents (with French and German tie-ups and editions) – has condemned our creeping Congressional "canvass" as, in its headline, The Slowest Election.

The subhead of the piece is even more specific: Vote-counting in the Philippines is a national disgrace.

Remember, this is a finance and economics daily read by decision-makers all over the world, a "business bible" if you will. What the FT says carries a clout that will affect our economy and, in effect, the welfare of our people in the next few years to come.

Here’s the critical notice it has spread to the four winds: "The Philippines is a corrupt, politically unstable and economically sluggish nation, but it is also a vibrant democracy where freedom and free speech are celebrated every day by millions of Filipinos. Since the overthrow of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos 18 years ago, the country has been an example to Asia of democracy in action.

"Yet this one bright facet of the Philippines’ reputation is sullied by the desperately slow manner in which votes are counted at election time. The latest election was on May 10. More than a month later, there is still no official word on who has been chosen by the people as their next president.

"This is not simply an administrative embarrassment. At every election, such delays threaten political stability and undermine the confidence of investors. Aggrieved losers have the time to whip up popular discontent, arrange street protests and plot military coups d’etat. Candidates declare victory with as little as 1 percent of the votes counted and then cry foul if the count turns against them."

The editorial even sideswiped the Supreme Court. The one-day Congressman from Pasig, our friend Noel "Toti" Cariño, although his name wasn’t published, also came in for honorable mention, as an example of what’s grievously wrong on our country. Said the Financial Times, on Toti’s case: "On Friday, a man who stood for Congress in 2001 was finally sworn in after a vote recount and a lengthy legal battle – just in time for the last day of the outgoing Congress."

What happened to Cariño is truly disgusting and yes, completely disgraceful. We’ve written about his being cheated frequently in The STAR and frontpaged his plight. But the mills of the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET) ground exceedingly slow. Even when the HRET, after four years at last decided that Cariño had been cheated of his rightful seat in the House and ordered his rival, Henry Lanot, who had wrongfully occupied that seat in the chamber evicted – there were excruciatingly slow "appeals" which ate up the remaining few weeks of Cariño’s term.

This writer even tried to get Speaker Joe de Venecia to speed up Cariño’s being seated, but JDV told me there was nothing he could do outside of a handshake and a photo opportunity. Finally, on the very last day of his term, Rep. Noel Cariño of Pasig was able to take his oath of office. Hello – and goodbye.

Cariño has been cheated of his being a congressman, of his four-year salary, his perks, his P65 million per annum in "pork barrel" – he will never be reimbursed a single centavo of that. Lanot has spent it all.

Is there no punishment for Henry Lanot? Is there no law requiring him to give it all back? None at all. In a country of 50,000 heat-seeking lawyers, we never seem to have laws on the statute books on proper punishments or redress for wrong. Worst of all, poor Cariño not merely got to enjoy his seat for only one dismal day, but he lost his "re-election" bid for Congress in the May 10 election. In short, he won’t be there when the next Congress convenes its session. He spent millions to pursue his electoral protest. Neither will he get back a centavo of this sum.

The tragedy of it all is that if he had been able to serve as Congressman for at least a year, he might have consolidated his political position – and handily won re-election. Life, it’s true, is full of what-might-have-beens. Or what-ifs. But why should clear-cut election protests take so long – and be so expensive? This is not democracy – this is idiocy. If justice delayed, as the legal axiom goes, is justice denied, Toti Cariño was denied justice.

Now we have the very slow "canvass". Corruption moves swiftly. What’s right creeps along slowly. Obfuscation, dilatory tactics and delay are the weapons of those with evil intent in this land.

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The Financial Times editorial goes on to underscore: "Fortunately, Filipinos have not seemed in the mood for big street demonstrations during the past month, although all polls and partial results show that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the incumbent president, only narrowly defeated her main rival, the popular film star Fernando Poe Jr.

"In today’s world, even in an archipelago where communications and transport are inadequate and politicians argumentative, there is no excuse for taking more than a couple of days to count votes in an election. India has just done it for 675 m voters with the help of machines.

"By hand or machine this should be a simple process, votes are counted and confirmed at the precinct level, then tallied at the city and provincial levels and again – in the case of the Philippine presidential and vice presidential polls – by Congressional committee.

"Last week, this committee, which only has to confirm and add up 176 numbers, was held hostage by political opportunists. In one six-hour period, it failed to process a single item. The June 30 deadline marking the end of the current presidential term is approaching. Filipinos should call a halt to this farce. The slow vote count is not only a waste of time. It is also a danger to democracy."

Yesterday, with the television channels still stubbornly carrying those irritating deliberations "live", giving our politicians continued opportunity to preen, prance, gripe, complain and indulge in wasteful histrionics, I saw former Senate President Edgardo Angara (FPJ’s original booster) nitpicking once more, trying to get the congressional committee to go back to the polling precincts to investigate irregularities.

C’mon Ed. What the heck!

Senator Joker Arroyo, with whom I don’t always agree, sensibly corrected him, stressing that the canvass committee was tasked and empowered to deal only with COCs or "certificates of canvass" and not dwell on other matters.

But enough is enough. Angara should not take up the nitpicking where Senator Aquilino Pimentel left off. Get that canvass finished once and for all.

What will it benefit FPJ – if he "won" – or the KNP to delay the completion of the canvass? Perhaps it’s the old Pinoy syndrome: If I can’t win, I’ll bring the house down.

What’s happening is bringing our entire nation down. We’re already down in the dumps, as it is.

Tama na. Sobra na. Tapusin na!

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President GMA has called a Cabinet meeting for Thursday to discuss the next moves of the government. She’s cannily not claiming to have been "re-elected" before the canvass is completed, but I’m glad she’s not letting any grass grow under her feet either.

In short, the President must act, not be paralyzed by the deep-freeze in the canvassing committee. The life and work of the Republic must go on, not be held hostage, as the FT commented, by the antics of political opportunists.

The United States, by the way, is sending Ambassador Francis Ricciardone Jr. back to Manila.

This June 28, Washington DC will even dispatch Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage at the head of a mission here. Hopefully, by that time, whoever’s President will be "proclaimed". (They expect it to be GMA, but discreetly the Americans are not saying – I’ve heard that the reason La Presidenta didn’t go to the Reagan funeral was that she had been politely tipped off that Dubya, her phone pal, was cagey about not giving her more than a fleeting handshake.)

Armitage – who graduated in 1967 from the US Naval Academy and served on a destroyer in the Vietnam gunline, then subsequently completed three combat tours in the riverine/advisory forces in Vietnam during that war – is fluent in Vietnamese, and, later, with the rank of Ambassador, directed US assistance to the new independent states of the former Soviet Union. He was active in the Administration of Bush the Elder – that is, the government of former President George Herbert Walker Bush – in dealing with the European Community, as Presidential Special Negotiator for the Philippine Military Bases Agreement, Special Mediator for Water in the Middle East, and Special Emissary to Jordan’s King Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm.

In short, Armitage is a big player in the current Bush Administration and in Pentagon affairs. What "gifts" or problems will he bring when he comes here? Abangan.

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THE ROVING EYE . . . Keep your eye on Hong Kong this coming July 1, the anniversary of the 1997 handover of HK to Beijing and that Special Administrative Region’s (SAR’s) return to the bosom of Mother China. Last year, 500,000 Hong Kong citizens marched to protest the regime of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive (originally handpicked by Beijing) Tung Chee Hwa. This July 1, our sources say, there will be an even bigger protest march – in which, perhaps, almost a million will participate. The increasingly "unpopular" HK chief executive, Tung Chee Hwa, was actually born in Shanghai on May 29, 1937, the first child of my old friend, the late shipping magnate Tung Chao Yung (C.Y. Tung). In 1947, the Tung family had moved to Hong Kong. Tung Chee Hwa had studied in Britain, graduating from the University of Liverpool in 1960 with a B.S. in marine engineering. On December 11, 1996, Tung won by a wide margin in the first election to the post of Chief Executive of the HK SAR of the People’s Republic of China. He was formally appointed by the Central People’s Government on March 4, 2002. His second term began on July 1, 2002. Resentful Hong Kong pro-democracy groups now accuse Tung of being too servile to Beijing, and unprotective of their rights and interests. What about the late Chairman Deng Xiaoping’s pledge to them of "one country, two systems"? Well, the admired Deng is dead – and once the leader’s dead, perhaps so are his promises. Let’s see what happens there next July 1. However, we’ve got our own troubles – right here.