DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Can’t anything work in this country?
Sunday, 07 05, 2009
Senator Loren Legarda, informed upon her arrival from an environmental conference in Switzerland that next year’s election automation would be derailed, asked: "What’s wrong? Can’t anything work in this country?"
Six years ago, when we were on the verge of automating the elections, something went wrong. The contract had been signed with the supplier, the machines had been delivered, but everything went royally wrong after that because some unseen hands made sure the automation would be scuttled. Now, on the eve of the signing of the contract for automation of the May 2010 elections, some unseen hands are again throwing monkey wrenches into the bid and award process, to make sure we revert to manual.
Until we see the signed contract between the joint venture company of Smartmatic/TIM and the Comelec, we can never be sure that all we have to do is press a button at the polling place next year. There are too many fools out there who couldn’t be trusted, who will do everything to make the voters hostaged to manual elections.
So who screwed up?
We have the best intentions, the right law to make those intentions happen, and the best safeguards in that law to oversee its correct implementation. But the implementors of the law are less than honest with their intentions. And therein hangs a dubious tale.
When the implementors of automation are more than willing to feign stupidity in reading the provisions of the Procurement Act — that’s what’s wrong. Imagine the stupidity of allowing a mere prospective joint venture company (JVC) to bid without it having cleared up its internal arrangements! Who are the partners in that joint venture? Who holds the majority vote? Who signs the checks? Who signs the resolutions of the JVC? Who determines the solutions to the technical problems? Who assumes responsibility for any foul up? Et cetera. These unresolved issues are a recipe for disaster in any corporate set-up. Yet, the Comelec proceeded posthaste to qualify bidders whose legal existence as JVCs have yet to be formalized.
When the implementors of automation do not even level with the general public on who the Comelec is actually dealing with — that’s what’s wrong. Transparency in the procurement process extends to the disclosure of relations and related business interests, if not political connections. Why Comelec did not require such a disclosure, or why it hid from the public such a disclosure (if one was actually made by the bidders), remains a mystery. It was only after the notice of award was given to Smartmatic/TIM that names closely identified with the Arroyo administration cropped up. Should not the Comelec have required the disclosure of these ties prior to the qualification of the bidders?
A provision in the Poll Automation Law establishes a joint oversight committee, to ensure that all moves of the Comelec in implementing the law adhere to the best intentions of the lawmakers and that nothing is left to happenstance in the bidding. We applaud the best intentions of Representative Teddy Boy Locsin of Makati City in seeing to it that full automation is operative by May 2010 — but we do have reservations about the real intentions of his colleagues in the same committee. Locsin’s outrage at the doublespeak of some committee members is understandable. It looks like a committee member out there has been mouthing lip service to automation, but his asides regarding the oversight function of the committee betray his inclination for manual elections, obviously in aid of his presidential ambition. That’s what’s wrong.
Then we have the Arroyo administration, whose preference for manual elections has never been in doubt. In the heat of the furor over the identities of the owners of the winning bidder, Malacañang threw a smokescreen to speculations over this-or-that relationship between you-know-who and the winning bidder. It was a calculated move designed to psych up the public toward accepting the withdrawal of the winning bidder: it makes it easier for the public, the opposition most certainly, to accept the withdrawal of Smartmatic/TIM. Indeed, why should the public allow a joint venture that is pally with the Arroyo administration to handle the automation? Better go manual than be screwed wholesale by a machine.
This is what’s terribly wrong: When the mind of the public is being browbeaten and conditioned to accept manual elections rather than leave their votes to the mercy of the machine owned, operated and controlled by the Arroyo administration. It has been 68 days since the contract should have been signed with the winning bidder. This delay brings us much closer to the day when the Comelec, with feigned sadness and regret, officially declares that we are going manual next year after all. Good news for Garci and his ilk, but we know for sure that they knew a long time ago that this was bound to happen, didn’t we?
Legarda’s lament — "What’s wrong? Can’t anything work for this country?" — should stand alongside a similar plaint from former Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez, as he lay in a pool of blood during one of those dark nights of martial law: "What’s happening to our country, general?" Pelaez was lucky to survive the assassin’s bullet, but the country may not be similarly lucky should we continue to live with manual elections. The Arroyo administration is in full survival mode, as the option for changing the Constitution to perpetuate the queen in power is getting close to nil. Manual election is the next best hope for the fixers and cheaters, liars and thieves to be able to stay in power.
So what’s wrong? It is the mindset of the Arroyo administration which arrogantly assumes that voters can be dickered with and treated casually and irresponsibly by dishonest people clothed with the mantle of integrity, probity and noble intentions. But you and me and the rest of us can make things right.
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