MOCK elections as a dress rehearsal or to smoke out the bugs in the polling system were held Jan. 19 in 60 polling places.
The exercise was concluded to the satisfaction of Comelec as the turnout was thin and the proceedings unfolded in a sober, calm fashion.
Mock the elections come May 13, if we cannot replicate the orderliness of that dry run. It is customary to expect exciting, not boring, elections. Not only do we have too many of them, plus occasional plebiscites, we just have too many politicians running for too many positions. More fun in the Philippines – more democracy than discipline, more beauty contests and fiestas than any other country, not to mention public holidays.
Mock the elections? Mock the election laws first. Candidates are noncandidates, their posters and billboards are not campaign materials because the campaign period has not officially started – a eureka moment inviting noncompliance. A law banning guns? Tell that to the candidates who demand more than two armed bodyguards each, for their safety. We need a law to ban candidates who are running scared.
Mock the promise of peaceful elections? Do you need a fortune-teller to predict that bullets, bullies, and bulls–t will rule again?
Mock a certain smart technology that has outsmarted people who are left scratching their heads, wondering how math and logic have been mocked, over and over again.
Mock (some of) the candidates for their mockery of their own limited abilities to win, mock others for their overwhelming greed and overflowing resources.
Mock the next elections if the people are tired of praying for honest, free, transparent, and believable results. It will take the BOL canvassers one week to tally the votes cast for YES or NO, seven days to count 2 million short answers, not names, in only one region. With 60 million ballots printed for May, and even with only 50 million to be cast . . . the art of extrapolating mocks me.
