16 May 2013
Mekaniko
By Jaime T. Lopez, III
Quality of the 2013 Elections
The 2013
elections have come to pass, and like in the last so many decades, I exercised
my right to suffrage in my hometown Moncada, Tarlac. While there, I had the
opportunity to interact with some town mates about the elections in general, as
we also exchanged views about the effect(s) of the election’s results on the
future of the country.
Personally, I’m
inclined to liken the elections to a production process that produces officials
as its product. And as to whether the product that the process churns out would
be good or bad, shall depend, I dare say, on the quality of various factors,
among them: the quality of the raw materials (or candidates), the quality of
the way the raw materials are prepared (or the campaign), the quality of the
process itself (or the voting system), and the quality of the people manning
the process (or the voters).
As to the quality of the candidates. Well, my take on this is that what we
seem to have this time is the usual mix of candidates prominently led by the
dynasts, as well as celebrities with ambitions of building their own dynasties.
There are also some independents as well as “small” people with nationalistic
tendencies and perhaps with genuine willingness to serve for the good of
his/her community. Some are also convicted persons, persons of dubious
character as well as nuisance candidates.
My perception is
that, generally, the major qualification for a person being drafted is “winnability”.
This to me connotes the availability of a supporting infrastructure that can
deliver a victory for the target elective position. There may be nothing wrong
with this criterion per se, except that it seems to stand dominant over
competence, track record, morality, integrity, or even sincere public
service…all of which can be conveniently disregarded in the interest of
preserving the “family political business”.
About 25% of
about 51 million registered voters (or about 12.75 million) do not participate
in the elections. I understand that the statistics is more or less similar with
this year’s elections and I’m inclined to believe, based on reactions I got
from some of the non-voters, that it is out of frustration with the choices.
As to the quality of the campaign. The 2013 election season seems to have
started well with the effort of the Commission on Elections to level the
election playing field as well as minimize election related violence. They issued resolutions that set limits to poster
sizes as well as established sites for their posting , set limits to media
exposures, disallowed distribution of materials/cash (as a check against vote
buying), implemented the strict implementation of an expanded gun ban, and an
expanded liquor ban.
The effectiveness
of their effort however started to wane when an archdiocese of the Catholic
church decided to disregard the Comelec rule and installed an oversized banner
(announcing their senatorial preferences), which, although objected to by the
commission, was allowed through a decision by the Supreme Court. From this
point on, various oversized posters and banners sprouted and once more dirtied
the fences, walls of establishments, posts, etc. along main roads. Nothing also
came out of the effort to set lower limits to the use of radio and TV as a
campaign venue, the expanded 5 day ban on liquor, and even an attempted effort
to limit the amount of cash that can be withdrawn from banks 6 days before the
election as a check against vote buying. All of these initiatives were
disallowed through halt orders by the Supreme Court.
Personally, I
agree with the Comelec’s initiatives which I believe can greatly level the election
playing field and improve the chances of other, and maybe better, candidates.
However, these provisions need to be incorporated in the country’s election
code so that its implementation can no longer be blocked, and I believe the
legislative branch of government has more than enough time (3 long years) to
work out the needed amendments.
There seems to be a
significant improvement however with respect to election related violence as
this year’s election was generally more peaceful and which I would attribute to
the successful implementation of the PNP’s Task Force Safe and Fair Elections
(SAFE) started last November, and together with DILG, it’s Oplan “Last Two Weeks” (http://pnp.gov.ph/portal/press-news-releases/latest-news/1132-dilg-pnp-bares-oplan-last-two-weeks). As
per the PNP spokesman, there were only
72 election-related violence incidents (as of Saturday, May 11)which is down by
50% as compared to 176 incidents posted in 2010, and is down by about 69%
versus the 229 incidents recorded in 2007 (http://www.upi.com/Top_News/
World-News/2013/05/13/Peaceful-election-season-in-Philippines-ends-with-violence/UPI-44561368452423/).There
were however 62 deaths as of election day, based on Philippine National Police
data (Thttp://www.philstar.com/headlines/2013/04/26/935495/violent-incidents-go-mid-term-elections-draw-near-phl).
Due to space
limitations, the continuation of this article will be featured in the next
column. Meanwhile comments/reactions will be appreciated and can be sent
through this writer’s email (sl3.mekaniko@gmail.com) or through this writer’s
blog (http: //mekaniko-sl3. blogspot.com).
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