Now is the time

If one reads postings in social media these days, there is a general feeling that we are fighting a futile battle. Yet it seems that by force of habit we continue to doing the same things with the hope that “there will be a time” when there would be no other way but to confront it. That time is now.

There was great rejoicing when a leader arose who might not only be a man for the people but one who will be true to his principles on what government should be – Davao Mayor Digong Duterte.

It is good to be reminded that Duterte is not just a man or a potential leader of our nation. He is also a symbol – one who can represent the millions in marginalized sectors who have been disenfranchised by the presidential system. We need to review elections 2010 and 2013 everyday and every chance we have so we do not commit the same mistakes.

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Here are some reminders of what was found about the last two elections that “we did nothing about.” This means that protests against repeating the same mistakes in 2016 will be futile. If we want to do something more effective we have to think out of the box. Here are examples what happened in 2010 and 2013.

In 2010, when  the Noy-Bi won the elections the scuttlebutt was that there were backroom machinations to put the new tandem to take the place of the Mar-PNoy, the original Liberal official tandem. All sorts of reasons were given for the strange turn of events. In fact, it was said the Aquino sisters were behind the new partnership between the Aquinos and the Binays. They are doing it again.

Sometime in June 2010 it was discovered that 2.6 million votes were declared null and void – a number that was enough to win the vice presidency for Binay. Coffee shop talk bristled with rumors that both Roxas and Binay had money to play with but that Binay had more.

The Joint Committee of Congress urged the Commission on Elections and Smartmatic-TIM Corp., to explain where the 2.6 million null votes went.

A lawyer of Liberal Party vice-presidential candidate Mar Roxas made a manifestation to the Joint Committee that a huge number of votes for the second highest position of the land were invalidated during the May 10 automated elections. “One of the questions to be thrown is why such a large number of null votes,” Senate Majority Floor Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri said.

House Speaker Prospero Nograles said that aside from the vice-president, about 1 million votes were also considered null for the position of president.

He said the invalidated votes could have bearing on the vice-presidential race considering the close fight between Mar Roxas of the Liberal Party and Jejomar Binay from the Puwersa ng Masang Pilipino.

But Congress did not even finish canvassing and the US ambassador paid a visit to Times Street to congratulate Aquino III.

Other happenings included the burning of PCOS machines. It happened in Bontoc, Mountain Province but it did not merit much attention from mainstream media.

Four men were charged with arson for burning PCOS machine. Police investigators that before the burning of the machines and other election materials the board of election inspectors (BEIs) and the PCOS technician were invited for breakfast by one of the residents living near the Apalis Elementary School leaving a certain Senior Police Officer (SPO1) Anselmo Gannisi and other civilians to guard the machine.

After about half an hour, the BEI members and the PCOS technician returned to the canvassing center and told the police officer to take his breakfast while waiting for the vehicle scheduled to transport the device and election paraphernalia to the municipal board of canvassers. So multiply that by the number of men who were deliberately made to burn the PCOS all over the country.

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That is why BayanKo organized a crowdsourcing  movement to get at the people who knew what was happening that was not being reported in mainstream media.

Some were being reported in social media but these were few and far between. The arrival of Rody Duterte into the national political scene spurred the expansion of social media as a political force. The expansion would mean that the political battle would be fought in social media where there would be greater access for those without a vehicle for communication.

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When Iceland first started its crowdsourcing movement, Birgitta Jonsdottir had radical ideas but there were others who were moderate. All in all it succeeded as a peaceful revolutionary movement not in the same mold as the Bolshevik and French revolutions. Jonsdottir, founder of the Icelandic Pirate Party a lifelong political activist and recently re-elected member of Icelandic parliament described the main demands of the new political revolution sweeping Iceland since the financial collapse.

“We can create power and be the government and be the media. If Iceland can do it, you can do it.” Although she did not say it directly addressed it to the Philippines.

Was the crowdsourcing movement good for Iceland? It seems so and it has been described as overcoming the major problems of the island sooner than bigger countries.

A report said, “The struggle in Iceland is ongoing, but the nation’s people have achieved monumental results in a relatively short amount of time due to the nature of their movement building. They managed to arrest and  jail the bankers  who wrecked the economy. When the government privatized public banking institutions to their friends, essentially for free, and made the people pay for their bailouts, the people threw them out of office and refused to  give the banks their money . And since Iceland only recently achieved independence from Denmark  in  1944 , their boilerplate constitution had never been updated.”

The movement in Iceland successfully used direct democracy to crowdsource a new constitution via Facebook and Twitter, and that crowdsourced constitution was widely supported by the people as the official model for a new constitution.”

While Iceland’s politicians have since ignored the will of the people, a budding new political force in Iceland is building a movement in parliament to change that.”