Killing conflict

Senator Miriam Santiago should include these issues in her topics when she attempts to straighten out flaws in our election laws. The good Senator recently complained about the UNFAIR ADVANTAGE of politician-actors/celebrities who have constant exposure on TV, movies or media in general.

The first things she should do is get both houses of Congress to pass a law that makes it illegal for elected officials to take “sideline jobs” such as movie projects, TV hosting, and radio program hosts.

She should also put a stop to the publicity seeking programs of ambitious government officials who buy air-time or print space only to promote themselves but achieve very little for their agencies in the hopes of promotion or election.

Just to put a stop to all the squabbling, cabinet officials and agency heads should also be prevented from appearing as talents and endorsers so that they don’t get unfair advantage and also become direct competitors of hosts, endorsers or talents.             

Then she should also put an end to PSEUDO Places of Residence where politicians build a structure and calls it their place of residence when in fact they live elsewhere.

So many politicians live in Ayala Alabang, Makati or Quezon City 70% of the time and yet claim to be residents of towns, cities and provinces outside Metro Manila. If people monitor elected officials of the Ca-La-Bar Zone as well as Northern Luzon, they will discover that many have their REAL HOMES in Metro Manila!

It’s about time that we put ALL elected officials on the “Bundy clock”. If we require private and government employees to punch in and punch out everyday, then it’s about time we passed a law for ALL elected officials to do so. And this time the law should require scanners and signatures so no “alalays” can forge for their bosses!

Please, Please Senator Santiago. Give this to us as an inheritance. We want elected officials who work for us not who compete with us. We want them to give us quantity time and not just quality time. And they should also do what they require of others…clock in and work at least eight hours a day, five days a week. 

* * *

Did you realize that the people who made the most number of accusations that there won’t be any elections, the people who cast the greatest amount of doubt that the Comelec wouldn’t be able to pull off the 2010 elections, and the ones who stands to benefit the most from the last elections are now the very people causing the greatest amount of confusion and delay to finish the electoral process?

Yes, Pedro the Senators and Congressmen have done it again.

After all the ugliness that has taken place in the halls of “Congress” pertaining to the elections of May 2010, it is beyond doubt that there is something seriously wrong with our system and it has nothing to do with the past elections.

We may have copied the “American system” but it would seem that we duplicated a “corrupted copy”. No I am not calling anybody corrupt, I am calling the design corrupted or something intended to be in the control or influence of a specific group.

As we all know, “elections” are under the Executive department. The Executive is represented by the Commission on Elections, which directly supervises the conceptual and physical process of an election.

Once we cast our votes the process goes back to the “Executive Department” via the COMELEC who gathers, counts, tally and turn over the results to the “National Board of Canvassers”

So far so good? Not really.

Something seems to be very wrong in this “design”. The National Board of Canvassers” are the members of Congress who either got re-elected, lost miserably or claims to have been or were cheated.

In other words, the people who should be waiting outside the door and keeping their hands off the results, are actually the ones who have the power to influence, question or delay the tabulation and proclamation.

The “honorable” members of the board may defend their position by saying that they merely count what has been tallied. Yet a review of the events in Congress during the past week shows proof of how a “successful” election that was recognized worldwide, can be delayed, derided, and discredited by the very people who were elected or rejected in that election.

No I am not smarter than George Washington or the US Colonial powers that designed our political system. But I do question the sincerity and integrity of a “system” designed to ultimately leave our votes and the election results in the hands of people who clearly have a conflict of interest.

While it may not serve them any direct favor in terms of their positions, they could delay or hold hostage the entire elections merely to negotiate or improve the interests of their political party.

Many LOSERS actually tried all they could to cast doubt on the process, discredit the COMELEC and brand the solutions providers as a syndicate that sold elections results.

While most of us only see whining old men and women arguing about procedure and technology, what about the possibility that certain negotiations are taking place regarding positions, appointments, concessions etc.

Since we have changed the technology for our elections, perhaps it’s also time to change the procedure and exclude the contestants from the canvassing so that we can prevent them from holding the contest hostage.