Health Hazard

On national television we saw the mess and violence that accompanied the special elections in some parts of Mindanao. Supporters pulled each other’s hair as they raged in shouting matches while guns were tucked in the waists of some men. These guns didn’t include the long firearms of soldiers who seemed helpless in keeping the peace and order during the special elections there.

This lack of order and discipline, the alleged vote-shaving and vote-padding, and the reported manipulated vote for sale from some COMELEC officials there make us sick. The news reports about all these make us puke. All these raise our blood pressure, giving more reasons for other Filipinos to leave this cursed country for good.

Small wonder election commissioner Rene Sarmiento, who was assigned to supervise the special elections in Maguindanao, resigned for “health reasons.” Among the few credible persons within the Comelec, Sarmiento was sent to Maguindanao to help give credence to the special elections. But apparently he could not stomach what he personally saw and got sick in the process.

Also sick and tired of all these mess and chaos in those parts in southern Philippines, one commentator suggested that these communities be segregated from the country and be called “Command Votes Territory.” Similarly, some quarters here in the Cordillera proposed that Abra, where some towns become a Wild Wild West during elections, be deleted from the Cordillera Administrative Region.

Of course, such suggestion doesn’t help. But it shows a growing frustration over why the Comelec and other concerned authorities failed to institute a credible way of electing our officials.

With all the mess and violence accompanying elections in other parts, I began to appreciate and value the discipline and good manners and right conduct of voters in my hometown of Kibungan in Benguet. There, we would queue up and we would even let the elderly vote first. Yes, in Kibungan, we still respect our elders. This is most common in Benguet and other parts of the Cordillera.

The mess in Mindanao all the more suggests that we need to modernize our stone-age electoral system.

But even if we computerize our electoral system, we are not sure if the violence and anomalies that accompany our elections will automatically disappear. Maybe the next irregularities will be more high-tech. Maybe they won’t burn ballot boxes, but CPUs. And watch out for computer hackers.

One big step forward is to clean up the Comelec. Remove the likes of Ben Abalos and his ilk, who have made the Comelec very partisan. Putting in credible persons like Sarmiento won’t help. Like the Supreme Court, the Comelec should be beyond question.

Even if we put fresh tomatoes in a basket of rotten ones, the fresh, good ones will also rot. We put some good, credible men like Sarmiento in a ‘Hello Garci’-infested Comelec, but they, like Yoyoy Villame, would end up wailing, “O Mother, Mother I’m sick, O call the doctor very quick. Doctor, doctor shall I die? O tell my mama do not cry.”

As Sarmiento found out, working with Abalos’ Comelec is hazardous to a credible person’s health.