FOR my friend and ex-future senator of the realm, losing the good fight was both a relief, physically and psychologically, and a great life experience.
He went places where he’d never been before. Met characters he’ll never see again. Learned stuff a Ph.D. would sniff only in virtual reality or book knowledge. Now that it’s over, he’s glad that his son, who joined the LGU elections, followed his advice to take part if only for the heck of it and be counted in democracy’s touted spectacle of an election.
The experience did not close his eyes to one remarkably, glaringly, odd “coincidence”: The initial results released by Comelec were the same as those that tumbled out in a barrage after a traffic standstill from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. the next day. A seven-hour traffic jam did not affect the standings of 24 candidates!
All eyes were on the second list, but in the excitement how many watchers were awake and keen on comparing it with the first? The two lists came from one and only one source, the transparency server. A mystery, a quirk?
It could’ve been a quirk – ? – also that the surveys spewing out of social media, away from mainstream media, showed results far different from the tallies released by SWS and Pulse Asia. What this means I couldn’t start to guess.
From the low-tech side, I have yet to find an answer to the niggling question of how Comelec approved two party-list contenders with the same name. If Ang Probinsiyano and Probinsiyano Ako had to be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, would both of them have been accredited? Only in the Philippines, only in the Commission on Elections.
There were more glitches and complaints in the midterm elections than in the 2016 presidential polls. What technical/mechanical roadblocks are voters bound to encounter in 2022? The possibilities are as endless as they are enormous, and certain smart and clever entities will no doubt take advantage, with so much more at stake.
Quoting Benjamin Franklin, our happy loser sounds more serious: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
