A concrete proof of the Catholic vote

A group that calls itself the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD) insists that there was no Catholic vote in the last Mid-Term elections because they say that 94% of pro-Reproductive Health (RH) candidates are winning their re-election bids. I will agree with their assessment only with regards the candidates of the Kapatiran Party, which many church groups supported. But remember there were other candidates that the Catholic groups like the White Movement or El Shaddai or Lay Initiatives for Elections (LIFE) 2013 supported.

Perhaps this group didn’t count Cebu into their equation. What they did not consider is that even in the Senatorial race the Catholic Vote got 50% of their candidates into the magic 12-winning circle. In the May 5 Lay Initiatives for Life (LIFE) 2013 rally at the Plaza Independencia, the group exhorted Catholics to vote for Pro-Life candidates.

I still have the photo of their poster that they set up behind the stage. The candidates’ names were listed in this order starting with Rep. Mitos Magsaysay, Sen. Gringo Honasan, Sen. Antonio Trillanes, Sen. Koko Pimentel, JV Ejercito, Cynthia Villar, Nancy Binay, former Sen. Dick Gordon, Sen. Migz Zubiri, JC delos Reyes, Marwill Llasos and Christian Seneres.

Check out the results of the Senatorial race and you will see that the Catholic vote got Nancy Binay, JV Ejercito, Cynthia Villar, Sen. Antonio Trillanes, Sen. Koko Pimentel and Sen. Gringo Honasan in the Magic 12. In my book, having 50% of their Senatorial candidates inside this circle isn’t so bad. This poster was located on the left side of the stage.

On the other side of the stage were the local candidates for Congress in this order: SamSam Gullas, Rep. Pabling Garcia, Gov. Gwen Garcia, Rep. Ben-Hur Salimbangon, Ace Durano, Rep. Luigi Quisumbing, Aileen Radaza and Rep. Raul del Mar. Party-lists were Buhay, Ang Pro-Life and ANAD.

Of this list only Rep. Pabling Garcia failed to secure his reelection bid. Yes, Pabling’s loss was a big loss for the Pro-Life movement. But whether you like it or not the Catholic vote won in the Congressional race.

In Cebu City, Mayor Mike Rama and his vice-mayoralty candidate Edgar Labella won their bids and you can claim this victory for the LIFE 2013 who was openly supported by the Catholic Lay groups. Mind you, the race in Cebu City was neck-to-neck a week before the elections. Then we got confirmation that Rep. Tomas Osmeña was supported by the Muslim groups and the solid votes of the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC). That Mayor Rama won this tightly contested race with a good margin is proof of the Catholic vote.

If at this point you are still not convinced… look at who is No. 1 among the party-lists and the highest votes in the 14 party-list race went to Buhay, represented by former Manila City Mayor Lito Atienza whom I met with his wife at the Plaza Independencia during the rally. So whether you believe it or not, that’s the Catholic Vote for you. 

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It’s already five full days since we held  the elections last Monday and just  like  the 2010 electronic elections, we  were all made to believe that the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) would give us incredible speeds from the voting all the way to the counting. The only thing that was blindingly fast  was the self-congratulations  done  by Comelec officials, patting themselves in the back when the reality on the ground is… the counting had bogged down. A  couple  of days ago NAMFREL was looking for 10 million votes. How could that happen in this digital era? The counting should have been over by now!

Because no one cared to seriously check whether the 80,000 PCOS machines worked perfectly while being stored in that expensive bodega, today the PCOS machines suffer from credibility and reliability problems. If truly President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III is sincere in solving our electoral problems, I dare him create an independent special “Agrava” type of Commission to look into whatever is wrong with our electoral systems.

Indeed, as former Comelec Commissioner Goyo Larrazabal said, “The PCOS machines are only one of the tools of the electoral system.” Yet Larrazabal admits that the broken PCOS machines must be replace. Hmmm I don’t recall Smartmatic coming up with certain warrantees to replace the broken ones. But I think we must not just replace the broken PCOS, we must replace the entire voting mechanism. These confounded machines cost our nation a huge amount of money. So if nations like France, Germany or India that tried electronic voting and got burned because of so many problems and dropped this system like a hot potato, we must look at why they dropped electronic voting and went back to a manual count.

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