Saga and independence

Today we commemorate our declaration of independence from Spain in Kawit, Cavite. We are focused on the declaration and forget the personalities, events and details that attended that declaration. If we did, it is my view that we would have less cause for celebration.

This story comes from O.D. Corpuz’s Saga and Triumph: “In the afternoon of June 9, 1898 the Filipino Community in Singapore led by Dr. Marcelino Santos celebrated the successes of the revolution. The celebration was combined with what Singapore press called a ‘serenade’ to honor Consul Pratt for having brought Aguinaldo and Dewey together. The affair was held at the American consular office in the Raffles Hotel. There was detailed reportage on the occasion in the Singapore Free Press and Straits Times whose editors W.G. St. Clair and A. Reid respectively were present.

The text of Dr. Santos formal address was in Spanish but he delivered it in French. The key portion expressed his hope that the United States government continue to support Gen. Aguinaldo and “secure to us our independence under the protection of the United States.

“After his formal address was over however, Dr. Santos continued extemporaneously still in French to explain that Filipinos had the capacity for self-government. At this point the Straits Times rendered Dr. Santos’ remarks (The Free Press had substantially the same report as follows):

“While it would be very desirable that such a government should be under American protection, yet it would be found that the brave Filipinos who were now driving the Spanish troops before them were quite fit also to fill offices of civil administration. Referring to certain views that had been telegraphed from Europe, Dr. Santos deprecated the transfer of the Philippines from Spain to any power. He was quite confident that the sympathy of the American people would be with a nation whose people were struggling to be free..”

Corpuz continues his narration to show that there was a lingering doubt among Filipino intellectuals of America’s intention for the Philippines but being pressed for time for the June 12 declaration of independence those doubts were brushed aside for another day. “There was no time to wait for sure answers to the question of whether or not the United States was a do-gooder non-imperialist nation, disposed to disinterested protection of the Filipinos and their independence. Bautista the writer of the June 12 proclamation committed Gen. Aguinaldo and his countrymen to an uncertain and novel fate by writing the United States role of protector into the independence proclamation.”

“Aguinaldo was different. Bautista exemplified the Filipino propensity to extend extravagant gratitude for small favors. For Aguinaldo, the fate of the motherland was not a personal matter. More than any other Filipino, the young leader was entitled to regard June 12 as a personal triumph. But he did not make the expected patriotic oration to gain points for himself. Instead, he cut short the historical ceremonies; there was no merry making nor feasting in Kawit on June 12. Aguinaldo had caught the risky assertion in the proclamation that his people and their political life were to be under the protection of an unfamiliar foreign nation. It was wrong. It rendered for naught the blood shed and the sacrifices made by the Filipinos since August 1896 to attain independence and self-government. Aguinaldo did not affix his signature to the historic document.”

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We also had our contemporary dilemma whether we should rush to proclaim a president while there were still pending questions on how the first automated election in the Philippines was conducted. I heard Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile say “we have to proclaim a president and vice-president before June 15 or expect dire consequences (or something to that effect).” I do not know what he meant but he knew something I did not. Whatever.

We now have President-elect Noynoy Aquino and Vice President-elect Jejomar Binay. They have been proclaimed and we are told to rally behind them to unify the country and keep the peace.

President GMA herself has sent her congratulations and has been game enough to go through the process of turning over the government including the detail on riding with the new President elect and giving him the keys to the Presidential car. This is all very well. The act of proclamation, transition arrangements, congratulations from Uncle Sam and Co., and what barong the new president would wear for the inaugural.

The problem is that there are lingering questions on the May 10 automated elections. There are Filipinos who want to be heard and should be heard however long it takes, not just in the perfunctory manner allowed by the Joint Committee on Suffrage of Congress. They ought to be heard and the questions resolved in the proper institutions. We should heed the lessons of June 12, 1898.

Some of them in my email are the following: from Nicanor Perlas who complains that the full story has not been told of the PCOS machines that were found in a private house in Antipolo. He says there seems to be a conspiracy to hide the facts.

“After several hours, the technician managed to start the PCOS machine. When it started, it printed out a date: 11 May 2010, 11:39 a.m. This was our first evidence that the machines had been used after the elections! Under Comelec General Instructions, election officers were supposed to shut down the machine after use on the day of the elections, that is, on 10 May 2010.” With limited space I cannot include the full story. Mr. Perlas must find a way to get his statement to the public through other means if mainstream media has misrepresented the facts.

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Rene Azurin, a colleague in the Constitutional Commission, wrote “An untransparent election” in Business World. He gives reasons against the claim of Smartmatic that there was no electronic cheating. He goes into technical details of the automated voting system. He argues that “The Filipino public has effectively been forced to accept whomever Comelec/Smartmatic says won the recent elections and move reluctantly on.”

In effect, we have just been through an untransparent election, one in which we have no way of knowing what the results actually were. Citizens’ groups who have been — correctly — critical of Comelec and Smartmatic for their seemingly deliberate bungling of the poll automation process must now prepare and file the appropriate cases against certain Comelec and Smartmatic officials because there is strong indication that a monstrous crime has been committed by them against the Filipino people.”

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I also did not know that even before the elections on May 10, the Philippine Computer Society represented by its president, Nelson J. Celis petitioned the Supreme Court for a certiorari, prohibition and mandamus against the Comelec to postpone the May 10 elections until Comelec-Smartmatic had satisfied various legal requirements. The complaint was also strangely brushed aside.