No stopping now the 2010 elections

We have unofficially kicked off the May 2010 national and local elections last Monday night. This was on the occasion of the formal launching of the “Boto Mo, Ipatrol Mo” partnership that we, The Philippine STAR, entered into with various media entities led by the Lopez-owned ABS-CBN radio-TV network. Our executive editor, Ana Marie T. Pamintuan signed on behalf of our newspaper as one of the media partners for the joint nationwide coverage of the elections next year. The 2010 elections are highlighted by the race among the presidential hopefuls, who, this early, have already made known their intentions to run.

The formal launching was capped by the signing of the memorandum of agreement (MOA) by top executives of all the participating firms that include Globe Telecom, Bayantel, and STI, as major partners of this undertaking. Other partners also include The BusinessWorld, Universal Motors Corp., and Youth Vote Philippines. Former ambassador to the Vatican Henrietta De Villa, chairperson of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) signed for this election watchdog group, and of course, most especially, the Commission on Elections (Comelec).  

While the signing rites for the MOA was taking place at the Manila Peninsula in Makati City that night, the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC), in partnership with the Ateneo School of Government, gathered five of the country’s probable 2010 presidential bets at the Ateneo de Manila University campus in Quezon City. They were Senators Francis “Chiz” Escudero, Richard “Dick” Gordon, and Manuel “Mar” Araneta Roxas II, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr. and Pampanga Governor Eddie “Among Ed” Panlilio.

Before the presidential forum began, veteran ANC news anchor Tina Monzon-Palma announced that invitations were also sent to Vice President Noli de Castro, Senators Loren Legarda and Manuel Villar as well as Metro Manila Development Authority Chairman Bayani Fernando. But they sent word they won’t be available for that maiden presidential forum for campaign debate.

Both in one-on-one and panel interviews, each or all of the five presidential candidates were asked what they could offer for the country that could convince the Filipino electorate to vote for them to succeed President Arroyo after she steps down from office by June 30, 2010. 

With the flurry of activities exactly one year before the polls, it looks like there’s no stopping now the election campaign fever — which rather started early this year — among these presidential aspirants. So it does not come as a surprise that Charter change (Cha-cha) proponents among the pro-administration Congressmen are apparently seeing now the futility of their attempts to force this issue at this late hour already. In fact, La Union Rep. Victor Ortega, chairman of the House committee on constitutional amendments, disclosed yesterday their “Plan B” on the most acceptable mode of Cha-cha that will get the least resistance from those strongly opposed to it, especially the Senators.

Instead of their original plans for Congress to convene into a Constituent Assembly, the House panel head revealed they would explore the possibility of passing instead a bill that calls for the holding of the Constitutional Convention (Con-con). The Senate had earlier unanimously approved a resolution that calls for Con-con mode of amending the Constitution. Under the House compromise plan, the Con-con delegates would be included in the 2010 national and local elections.

But we might all be jumping the gun too early with these Con-con plans and even the presidential debate kick-off. For one, the Comelec is still having problems on how to implement the automated polls that both the Palace and Congress have approved and funded with specific budget. All the seven bidders to the poll automation have failed to meet the stringent requirements imposed by the law on Comelec.

The prospects of a failed bidding remain a strong possibility while Comelec’s hands are tied to comply with the mandate of the poll automation law. Worse, time is running out for the poll body to put this automated election system in place and make sure it’s running on election day. But we cannot afford to implement haphazardly this poll automation. This is why it’s very important that the Comelec should exert its best efforts to meet its self-imposed timetable to ensure that the poll automation could be carried out with less chances of failure of elections.

The forthcoming presidential elections could not and should not be used as a laboratory test for the poll automation. We could afford to have failure of bidding now for the poll automation than a failure of elections that could have far worse consequence for us as a nation.

In the meantime, however, we could not also afford to just wait for the Comelec to get going the poll automation into stream. As members of media, we have started our own preparations for the electoral campaign activities that must be done now. This will be the second time of partnership that we joined for the media election coverage first initiated by the ABS-CBN during the mid-term elections in May 2007.

But as Maria Ressa, senior vice president for news and current affairs of ABS-CBN put it, this will be an expanded partnership that would harness the popular use by Filipinos of their cellular phones to more productive endeavor like protecting their votes. “The idea for Boto Mo, I-Patrol Mo was simple: get the people to care and to take action. It’s people power with new technology. If you see something wrong or something good, tell us about it. If you see someone trying to buy the votes, snap a picture on your cell phone and send it to us,” Ressa urged.

This was why the Globe executives who came in full force to the MOA signing rites led by their president, Ernest Cu, were all smiles during the photo opportunity. All of those who signed the MOA were made to pose holding their cell phones. Ferdinand M. Dela Cruz, head of Globe’s consumer wireless business group, got the opportunity to promote their latest product service. Globe launched last week their Duo cellular phone service that combines both mobile and landline in one service. The Globe executive punned: “Let’s Duo It!”

Of course, not to be outdone, I teased them back with my own pun: Globe luck to all of us!