Phl politics won’t deliver us the same quick election results

Consistent with his being a diplomat, American Ambassador Harry Thomas visibly kept in control his jubilation as he announced the other day the unofficial results of the exit polls by CNN, on who won the just concluded US presidential election. At that juncture, it was very clear re-electionist US President Barack Obama had just earned another four years at the White House.

Thanks to the wonders of technology, it enabled us here in the Philippines, as well as in other parts of the world, to know the results of the US presidential polls in real time. At the exact closing time of the last votes cast in the US East Coast (around 1 p.m. here in the Philippines Wednesday), we knew already about the certainty of the Obama victory from the CNN coverage of the presidential contest.

Of the 538 total votes from the electoral college, Mr. Obama and his fellow re-electionist Vice President Joe Biden needed 270 to win over Republican presidential candidate, ex-Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and his vice presidential running mate Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan. The final tally showed Obama-Biden won 303 over Romney-Ryan’s 206.

In his victory speech Mr. Obama said: “We’ll disagree, sometimes fiercely, about how we get there. Progress is not always a straight line.” Hopefully, people at Malacañang Palace listened well, or at least read later the speech of Mr.Obama.

The US Embassy here, as they have done in the past, hosted their traditional US presidential elections watch. They held it this time at The Block, in SM North EDSA in Quezon City. With an oversized TV screen on a stage festooned with blue and red balloons, the venue recreated the festive American presidential polls.

US Embassy officials and staff led by the ambassador were busy entertaining their guests consisting of Philippine government officials, local media, and American nationals invited to witness the biggest political event taking place in the 50 US states. Seen at this event were P-Noy’s presidential adviser on political affairs Ronald Llamas, Comelec official spokesman James Jimenez, election lawyer Romy Macalintal, ex-Sen. Orlando Mercado, Eduardo Francisco, president of the BDO Capital & Investment Corp., lawyer Harry Roque.

Just to get the feel of the US presidential race, mock polls were also conducted at the same venue using the popular Apple i-Pad to serve as the pseudo voting machines.

The final mock results: Obama/Biden: 1,620 (76%) Romney/Ryan: 509 (24%).

At the end of the day, Thomas aptly described the real winner in this American electoral exercise: “US Democracy is the winner today! Nobody lost today… It is our duty to respect the will of the people and work with whoever the people have chosen.”

Mr. Obama marked another first in US history. He is the first African-American to become President. And now, he is the first African-American to be re-elected President.

Like his President Obama, Thomas also distinguished himself as the first African-American ambassador assigned to the Philippines. “I’m very proud to continue working with President Obama,” Ambassador Thomas declared when the exit polls came out.

A few months after he first took office at the White House in January 2010, President Obama designated Thomas as the US ambassador in Manila on April 27, 2010, or a few days before we had the presidential election here in the Philippines.

Thomas created quite a stir in the diplomatic community in the Philippines when he beat his fellow ambassadors to meet with then President-elect Benigno “Noy” Aquino III on May 21, or more than a month before the latter could even assume office at Malacañang. 

Thomas motored all the way to the Aquino family residence at Times Street in Quezon City where he first showed his serious preparation for his Philippine assignment by learning to speak quite a mouthful of Tagalog, including street language. “Kita-kits tayo!” (We’ll see each other again), Thomas wisecracked to P-Noy as he bade goodbye at the doorstep of the Times residence.

But unlike his boss, the 56-year-old ambassador is scheduled to wind down his tour of duty here in the next six months. That is unless Thomas’ stay is extended by the State Department.

For a few minutes, I got to buttonhole Thomas for a brief chat with him that day at the sidelines. I asked if it is true that Mr. Obama cast his early vote in Chicago last Oct. 25 using a Smartmatic machine. This is the Venezuela-based company that installed the first-ever automated election system used by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) during the May 2010 presidential elections in our country.

In fact, Smartmatic came out with a whole page advertisement at The STAR last Tuesday, or on the eve of the US presidential elections, with enlarged photo of Mr. Obama standing in front of a covered machine (resembling Smartmatic’s precinct count optical scan) casting his vote. I first saw this photo posted in the Facebook (FB) account of Cesar Flores, Smartmatic president for Asia-Pacific. Flores wrote: “Obama early voted today on a voting machine developed by Smartmatic!”

“Yes, it’s true!” Thomas exclaimed. Pressing on, I asked the ambassador if Smartmatic’s use of Obama’s photo for their ad — obviously unauthorized — may get the company into trouble. “Not at all, not at all,” Thomas replied.

Throwing the same question to the Comelec spokesman on this Smartmatic ad, Jimenez regarded it as just a “marketing ploy” of the company to gain wider public acceptance of their product. This ad, he pointed out, is obviously directed at Smartmatic’s bitter critics.

Comelec already bought the same PCOS machines of Smartmatic that will be used also for the coming May 2013 midterm elections here. Even with President Obama as their unwitting model, it is still no guarantee Smartmatic will give the same quick election results what with the kind of politics we have.