Elections in the Philippines

The most common cynicism we usually hear when protests are filed right after the election is that in the Philippines there really are no loser candidates, only cheated ones. This notion has somewhat turned itself into a popular cliché, to generally disparage or discredit any election protest even if one does have substantial grounds for it.

Though such judicial relief may have been abused by a greater number of "bitter losers",  it does not necessarily mean that all election protests will also leave that same bitter taste in everybody's mouth. One only has to consider the conventional unsavory methods used by some traditional politicians in order to win and the manner some of our commissioned officials have incompetently and unscrupulously conducted every election so that one can truly assess a number of real and intolerable glitches in our democratic process.

Take for example the predicament that San Fernando, a town in southern Cebu, has been put into.

The municipal board of canvassers (MBOC) has already, and hurriedly so, proclaimed the purported winner of the town's mayoralty race according to the figures supposedly transmitted by all of the PCOS machines. What makes up for the uncertainty are the mismatched, or rather incomplete, figures posted by other accredited agencies in their websites, which up to this day still haven't changed, in comparison with that of the MBOC's. The former have the other candidate on top while the latter has proclaimed her rival as the winner.

The purpose of having three accredited agencies or institutions to simultaneously and directly receive the same election return in virtually one transmittal coming from one PCOS machine is to guarantee that whatever figure one of these agencies or institutions receives it most likely would mirror that of the other two.

The questions then are these:

How can we determine if the figures in the MBOC are consistent with the other accredited recipient agencies when the latter have yet to receive the transmitted returns? And how come the MBOC has already received all the transmitted returns while the other recipients have not, when there supposedly is simultaneous and direct transmittal of returns to all three recipients?

The Philippines is a democratic and republican State. Sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them. This Constitutional declaration means that the people are the true owner of the reins of power of the state and source of all governmental authority, and that their will dictates the destiny of the country.

Apparently, and with the people's initiative's improbability to be initiated, the only moment for the people to exercise their sovereign power is when they cast their votes in the election and thereby instituting their will. But if our electoral process is mired with discernible uncertainties, then there really is no guarantee whether the people have truly exercised their sovereign power or their will actually instituted.

It is the sacred duty of an independent and competent COMELEC, the main reason why it is to be established as such, is to ensure that, through it, the people can genuinely exercise their sovereign power and impose their will. This is the very essence of a working democracy.

Thus, if we heedlessly make an assertion that that popular cliché is to be accepted a reality, that with the knowledge it is buttressed upon some shaky and shady foundation, then whatever assumption of freedom, liberty, or notion of sovereignty we have is just an embellished but slowly deteriorating façade of a crumbling democracy.