Fraud or frame-up?

Just when we all thought that the country's first automated electoral experience will confirm for us the winning candidates at the soonest time, especially for the top national positions, allegations of frauds instead are now being covered by media and busily circulated through the internet.

Padding of votes for certain candidates, computer tampering, even secret deals with key political and economic players in exchange for electoral support and so on are being passed on to various media outlets. Worse than the "Hello Garci" episode, the fraud allegations are now defined as "Electronic Garci."

The fraud allegations focus on casting doubt about the huge mandate that continues to be tallied for the leading presidential and vice-presidential candidates. Specifically, the allegations point to the presence of fraud in the tallying of votes for Noynoy Aquino and Binay and/or Roxas - that the tallied votes that record a decisive huge mandate especially for Noynoy have been tainted with dishonesty and fraud.

Recent news continue to report about missing PCOS machines, or PCOS machines discovered in places outside of the official Comelec areas, about pre-programmed and earlier-dated relayed results, as well as vote-buying, vote-padding, or vote switching allegations, including exposes of individuals who hide behind masks and whose identities are not revealed yet.

This is a serious development that all Filipinos have to pay attention to and be vigilant about.

The fraud allegations imply and suggest that the sacred votes of the 50 million Filipino voters have been desecrated and tampered with. The fraud allegations also imply that although automated, once again, our elections here in the Philippines ended up just like all other dishonest and dirty elections before.

The fraud allegations have also cast much doubt about the supposed large lead and decisive mandate of Noynoy Aquino as President of the Philippines. The seeds of doubt cast by the fraud allegations have emboldened other candidates, especially Erap Estrada, to call for careful investigation of the electoral results. The GMA dominated Congress that will screen and finally canvass the votes vowed to scrutinize both the electronic results and the manual ballots to uphold the sanctity of the vote and the electoral process.

It is time for all Filipinos to pay attention and carefully study as well all these fraud allegations.

Several questions come to mind.

One, why are the fraud allegations specifically targetting the presidential and vice-presidential votes? If the computers and programs have been tampered with, shouldn't the results for the senators as well as all other local government candidates also have to be re-checked and scrutinized? Why were there no complaints or protest about the proclamation of senators and other local candidates? Why is the focus of the alleged fraud centered on the votes for the Presidency and the Vice-Presidency?

Are the fraud allegations true or just intended to sow doubts and confusion enough to move the affected candidates to decide to derail the proclamation of the President and the Vice-President or worse, declare a failure of elections for these two positions and if so , then RAFAEL (Return Arroyo due to Faiilure of Elections) may be possible?

The No election or NO-ELscenario was not possible with the large turn-out of registered voters and with the devotion and commitment shown by the Filipino voters who persisted in registering their choice inspite of the heat, the glitches and other challenges during election time.

So is it possible that the emerging fraud allegations could be connected to RAFAEL and that the so-called frauds have been crafted to serve as a frame-up for candidates to take the bait, demand a failure of elections or fight and quarrel and have rallies and so on so that no proclamation of a new president and a new vice-president is possible?

Are the fraud allegations intended to set the stage for the return and retention of GMA as President? (To be continued )

* * *

Email: [email protected]