Frustrating the people's will for change through elections would lead to chaos, says COMELEC Chairman Jose Melo. But, would it?
Three presidentiables, officials of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and progressive groups have criticized Melo for expressing his "nightmares" in public. Yesterday, Melo expressed apprehensions that anybody sinister enough to file a TRO due to a failed bidding, may yet derail the electoral exercise. He says the current bidding should be "above board" and "transparent" to avoid such complications.
Yet, we all know that Melo is asking for the impossible. This early, one of the seven bidders represented by one lawyer, a certain Attorney Nobleza, indicated its desire to file a TRO due to alleged partiality in COMELEC's choice of the four remaining bidders. COMELEC cannot prevent anybody from exercising what they think is a right.
That's the problem with this bidding. It is being implemented a few months prior to the elections; hence the poll body is now pressured to choose a bidder even if the choice is a "lesser evil". That's why critics are wont to say that the entire exercise is designed to fail.
Even suggestions that maybe COMELEC may choose to automate some and not all areas of the country just indicates the a priori knowledge of COMELEC of the inability of these bidders to adequately supply the necessary machines to fully automate the elections. The very fact that COMELEC suggested this just shows you how ill-prepared they are for the elections.
Indicatively, Melo is just one small player swimming in a lake full of veteran election gamblers. Melo may have the right intentions; yet the syndicate of election operators are stronger and more entrenched inside the organization than him, a veritable newbie and outsider. This syndicate wants manual counting precisely because they earn from it. It is not a political decision. These derailments are signs that the COMELEC syndicate is silently working as a saboteur.
COMELEC is just one example of a government gone the syndicate way. The entire Philippine bureaucracy has been transformed into one big syndicate that is anti-progress, anti-reform. The only way to change it is not through elections but through a systematic, surgical and painful way possible.
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