The greatest challenge to the Supreme Court

First off, I got this email from Mr. Dante Jimenez, founding chairman and president of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) in response to the article we wrote last Saturday about their joining in the fight vs. the rape of Philippine democracy. Here’s his letter in full.

“Dear Mr. Avila, Greetings of peace and justice! Foremost please accept our heartfelt thanks for the very educational article on Oct. 18, 2014 you wrote in your regular column in Philippine STAR about “The VACC fights vs rape of our democracy.” Honestly, we take exemption to this observation from a columnist who realized that VACC is no longer a traditional civic organization composed of victims of heinous crimes, who help victims/victims’ survivors in pursuing their respective cases in the so-called pillars of our criminal justice system: law enforcement agencies, prosecution, courts, penology and the community oriented organizations.

VACC has matured through long years of coordinating, cooperating and co-existing with a system, which we realized has not learned its lessons from past sad experiences of injustice among our people. We need not elaborate on this as it will take a long list of injustices of the present system of government we have at the moment, which to us must be replaced by another system which will answer the problem of inequality.

Anyway, we agree that since the issue of “electronic dagdag bawas” has practically made the last elections “illegitimate,” we reiterate our call to return to the old system of manual counting and make the COMELEC and the administrations of Arroyo and Aquino answerable to the people. Again we salute you and more power! — Dante Jimenez, Founding Chairman/President, VACC.”

This is the challenge for us Filipinos. I dare say that if Chairman Sixto Brillantes is allowed to purchase billions more of another bunch of PCOS machines, we must block this move for the ignorant masses do not realize that their votes have been electronically “stolen” right before their eyes. Remember how powerful was the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) during the past elections? Well, their block voting style has been deemed insignificant because though the INC votes for a particular candidate, but he is not favored by the gods of Comelec that manipulate the PCOS machines…their candidate won’t win!

We’re foursquare behind the VACC because they’ve always fought for the small people who were victims of crime and injustice and have maintained a high degree of credibility. If you ask me, the manipulation of the PCOS machines to elect our current crop of Senators and Congressmen is a far bigger crime than the misuse of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) a.k.a. pork barrel, or the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) both of which were declared unconstitutional by the SC!

Now the Supreme Court faces its biggest challenge of all time when the VACC together with other concerned citizens like Atty. Glenn Chiong, Prof. Nelson Celis of Automated Election System (AES) Watch, Melchor Magdamo and Rev. Wendell Unlayao has asked the Supreme Court (SC) to declare the 2013 Senatorial Elections “null and void” because of strong evidence of “electronic dagdag bawas.”

Mind you, these people bring with them unquestionable and clear-cut evidences of electronic fraud committed by the Comelec, which all began when they violated the law by removing all the electronic safeguards that would have guaranteed that the system could not be manipulated. If the Supreme Court finds merit in this case… then they must not waste time and immediately declare the 2013 elections “null and void,” and those Senators and Congressmen must not stay a day more in an office that they illegitimately acquired through electronic fraud…. not a day more!

No doubt, doing so will cause a grave upheaval never seen in Philippine political history. But then again, if fraud can be proven, it is also the first time in Philippine history that Senators, Congressmen, Governors and Mayors were simultaneously and fraudulently elected into office. This means that all their pronouncements and laws that they crafted and made into a law are just as “null and void” as they are. We are at the crossroads of history!

So the big question is… will the Supreme Court find the courage to remove the entire Philippine government elected due to electronic fraud? If justice is what is seriously lacking in this country and a grave injustice has been done against the Filipino voter’s right of suffrage, thus allowing only a handful of people to decide as to who should be elected into office. Justice therefore must be done!

Thus we expect the Supreme Court to rule according to the norms of justice no matter what the consequence would be for the government. At this point, we don’t need an EDSA revolt anymore. All we need is for the Supreme Court to act swiftly and dispense justice to right the wrong done.

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