IT has been two weeks since the first ever automated elections in Philippine history was a done deal, but people are still talking about it. Some hail it as a success, whatever they mean by that. Other say it failed in a number of ways—confusion in the clustered precincts, missing names in voters’ lists, glitches in the automation process, electronic fraud kuno (whatever that means), and the usual incidents of violence here and there (SOP in Philippine elections), etcetera.
Not to mention charges of cheating aired by losing candidates from Aparri to Jolo, which is old hat. Even some winners complain of having been cheated, although they refuse to press charges—but of course.
The Congressional hearings on alleged electronic fraud have become strident at times, thanks to volatile tempers that add a bit of dubious drama to the proceedings, even if decorum should be observed during such critical investigations aimed at ferreting out the truth. And the truth is still nowhere in sight.
The trouble with such hearings is they also serve as an excuse for certain losing candidates to continue making it some sort of a face-saving device to cushion the reality of their electoral defeat—especially if such defeats were utterly crushing and extremely hard to take.
Which is not to say that the hearings ought to cease and desist in order to for the country to move on. Somewhere, somehow there must be truth to certain allegations of cheating which must be exposed and the culprits punished for the good of our electoral system.
Meanwhile, all this hullabaloo is so sickening, it makes one wish he were somewhere else on this planet. Better still, on another planet.
