THERE was collective euphoria over the conduct of the country’s historic elections last May 10. The nation, led by the Commission on Elections, congratulated itself for what appeared to be a success of the first ever automated elections. We were especially relieved that our fears of massive electronic cheating and technical glitches leading to a general failure of the exercise did not materialize.
However, we may have spoken too soon. For after the electoral smoke has cleared, so to speak, we realize that the elections were still hounded by violence, vote-buying, excessive spending and other age-old problems. The foreign observers say so and we better believe them because they have no agenda behind their negative assessment. Let’s not close our ears to the poor sports – the losing candidates and their supporters who remain unconvinced of the big margins, they, too, may have some gripes worth considering.
The speed of the results was the most amazing thing about the conduct of the elections. It was the singular reason why most Filipinos agree that the electoral exercise last Monday was indeed a success.
Nevertheless, we should not turn a blind eye to the killings, and other violations of election laws.
Not to speak of the need to review the problem of congestion at the precincts due to clustering which led to many voters leaving the premises never to return. Those long queues shouldn’t happen again, ever. And there were occasions of mechanical troubles of the PCOS machines and other glitches that delayed the transmission of a considerable number of returns.
There is, therefore, a need to address all the problems, big and small, and implement solutions that will fine-tune the electoral process in the future.
Still and all, automated elections are here to stay, we all hope. There must be no turning back to the old system which has been the bane of all past elections.
