EDITORIAL - Elections: Voice of the people, not Comelec’s

Stung by criticisms following mock elections the Comelec held to test the efficiency of PCOS machines to be used in the May 2013 automated elections, Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes asked critics whether they want to return to manual elections instead.

This is precisely the kind of thinking that helps ensure either the failure of elections or the lack of public confidence in the results. Instead of using criticisms to its advantage, the Comelec seems too willing instead to pawn the future on its own conviction of infallibility.

But the Comelec is not infallible. Time and again, election after election, the poll body has shown it is far from being the perfect election machine needed to ensure that the results are credible and truly reflect the popular will.

The May 2013 elections will only be the second time that the country will be using PCOS machines in an automated election. That alone suggests that nobody, least of all the Comelec, has learned to perfect the system.

That said, the Comelec should have welcomed criticism on the off chance there are gems of ideas from them that can be used to improve the system. The Comelec should disabuse its mind that criticisms are meant to destroy.

Criticisms, if taken positively, can prove to be a treasure trove of ideas that may not have been seen or heard before. From these ideas can come insights and inspirations toward making our elections what they ought to be in a democratic system.

To ask the critics whether they want a return to a manual system is being childish, and the public is aghast that it should be the Comelec chairman who would seem so puerile in face of a problem that needs grown men to solve.

Just because the Comelec is the sole authority on elections doesn’t necessarily mean it is the only authoritative and precise voice on the matter. They just happen to be there because it is not possible for everyone to do the job themselves.

But if the current crop of ranking Comelec officials are not up to the job or are unwilling to consider public opinion, then they better resign from their positions, for they have apparently forgotten that elections primarily represent the voice of the people, not Comelec’s.