It wasn’t a proud day for our democracy

I’m sure our readers want to know who won the mayoralty race in Cebu City. For the first time in his more than 20-year career as a professional politician, Rep. Tomas Osmeña lost his bid to retake the mayorship of Cebu from incumbent Mayor Michael Rama. History has been made… that an Osmeña lost in the so-called Osmeña country! Blame it on the PCOS machines? Why not? It is quite possible. However, Mrs. Margot Osmeña, wife of Tommy Osmeña won her reelection bid as a Councilor in the South District of Cebu City, so it was not a fluke. We’ll explain this to you in another time.

As for the race for Cebu Governor, Hilario “Jun Jun” Davide III won over Rep. PJ Garcia, while Acting Gov. Agnes Magpale won her bid to be Vice-Governor. While Tomas Osmeña may have lost his mayoralty bid, he is still the puppeteer behind Jun Jun Davide. I just hope that Jun Jun Davide would assert himself to be his own man and not someone else’s puppet.

Another surprise win was the mayoralty bid of former Senator John Henry “Sonny” Osmeña who won over Rudy Espinosa for the mayorship of Toledo City. Frankly speaking, everyone thought that the old political dog, Sonny “O” was already a “has-been” politician. But apparently he still has some political cards to play. I’m sure that Sonny “O’s” victory would end with a double celebration in the sense that not only did he win his mayoralty bid, his arch enemy, his own cousin Tomas lost his bid.

Another huge surprise was the defeat of our good friend, Rep. Eddie Gullas who lost his attempt to regain the Mayor’s seat of Talisay City. He lost to an unknown JVR De Los Reyes. The Gullases have ruled the 1st District of Cebu for many decades and without any hint of corruption. Yet Rep. Eddie lost to a nobody. Honestly, I still can’t explain it and my only suspect as of this writing is the PCOS machines. But we will leave this issue until and unless we find some evidence to substantiate my fears.

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The elections last Monday was proof that the Comelec has bungled their job, not just in purchasing those dysfunctional PCOS machines, but even in the way the Comelec handled the elections. If at all, the only thing that worked wonderfully in my precinct at the Cebu Normal University (CNU) was that they had a line for the Seniors, which was very convenient. However it also caused a lot of trouble in the sense that no one asked any of the seniors for their IDs… so many people old enough but didn’t have a seniors card lined up to the consternation of the other voters.

I have voted since I was eligible eons ago. So when I got into the polling desk, I was surprised why my picture and signature was no longer there. I voted last 2010 and I distinctly remember that I had my photo and signature. This is just one proof that Comelec officials don’t do anything in between elections. While I was finished in 30 minutes, my daughter who voted at the Guadalupe Elementary school finished after 4 hours. This was due to the fact that many of the PCOS machines would not accept a lot of ballots and thus caused a lot of traffic.

If you were watching the TV networks covering the elections you can trace all the election problems to the PCOS machines. So many voters were disenfranchised, including I heard Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte. This is not to mention the many PCOS machines that totally failed and could not be replaced on time.

What about the transmission of the results? Sure they were lightning quick, but were they accurate? Who can validate that these figures were accurate? As we’ve been harping day in and day out, the only way to verify and ascertain the accuracy of the PCOS machines is to do a parallel manual count. Unless the Comelec allows this to happen, whether they like it or not the Year 2013 elections will always be clouded with doubt.

I still like the manual count because after you finished voting, it goes immediately into the ballot box. Now if only the Comelec sent a team to study the elections in Canada and the UK, which still use manual counting, they would see that they get the results within 24 hours. That should be the system we ought to adopt. As it is, the troublesome PCOS machines have only put a cloud of doubt in our election system.

Incidentally, on Election Day, the voters rejected “Daang Matuwid” in favor of limang daang piso. Yes, vote buying even in Cebu City was the order of the day. My creative director even got P1,000 wrapped inside a Liberal Party poster.

So in the end, the faulty PCOS machines and the massive vote buying did not really reflect the true sentiment of the voters. God help our nation. Honestly, I wasn’t proud of our democratic process. I’m even ashamed that we still call ourselves a democratic nation.

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