by Lito Banayo
from MALAYA
That was a pretty good break from column-writing. Of course, I kept in touch with my Abante readers. Shorter columns in Tagalog are easier to dash off than a Malaya opus. I wanted to have some distance from the usual, and usual was quite hectic during the campaign period.
I went to my adopted Caraga, soaked in a little sun, ate a good lechon and native crabs in a small beachside lot in Carmen, Agusan del Norte which my physician-brother bought several years back. There I did an ocular inspection of a small business project that the family began this year, and talked with old friends from the mother Rotary Club of the city where I once presided. I have also visited some other places, sometimes just to look at magnificent fire trees in full bloom. This is the time of the year when their leaves give way to an outburst of flaming orange, a colour that was not in favour in the early days of May. Of course I have in my front yard a golden shower tree, which likewise gave a cascade of yellow amidst the crush of orange from three giant caballeros beside it. Ah! Life’s simple pleasures.
I had occasion to marvel yet once more at the beauty of Palawan. They had just concluded an elections where most every major candidate could not figure out just where they actually resided. Those who had been in power far too long forgot that their capital, Puerto Princesa, had been declared a highly urbanized city, and since Puerto was the only place in the huge province where a political sophisticate could access the usual amenities of modern life, everybody and his uncle lives in Puerto. But Puerto this time does not participate in electing a governor, just as my adopted Butuan City in Agusan del Norte does not elect its governor since martial law days.
In any case, a three-term congressman who decided to run for governor claims that he has been living in an animal feeds bodega without a rest room in the municipality of Aborlan, next to Puerto Princesa in Palawan, since March of 2008. That’s because the law provides that a candidate for a local position must reside in the constituency he hopes to govern. But Representative Abraham Mitra actually lives in the beautiful family mansion overlooking Honda Bay in Rancho Sta. Monica, Puerto Princesa. As late as in his 2009 Statement of Assets and Liabilities, which he signed under oath, he indicated his residence as such. So does it say in his residence certificate.
Now some say that this is a technicality, and indeed the results of the elections show Mitra edging out Jose Alvarez by less than 15,000 votes (146,847 to 131,872). And Baham’s supporters say this ought to be a case of vox populi, vox Dei. Mitra was backed up by incumbent three-term Gov. Joel T. Reyes, whose wife was packaged with the latter as vice-governor. Despite this preponderance of traditional political muscle, he led Alvarez by just 5% of the total votes cast.
The Commission on Elections en banc decided on May 4 that Mitra does not qualify because he is not a resident of Palawan minus Puerto Princesa which has been declared a highly urbanized city. Mitra had three years to actually reside in Aborlan, or Narra, or anywhere but Puerto. Yet he did not. And when he realized the legal infirmity, he declared that he had been residing in a small room of a feeds warehouse. Amazing!
What is quite amusing is that because the Supreme Court issued a status quo ante order until it finally decides on whether or not Mitra was qualified to run for governor of a province despite lack of real residence, the provincial Comelec counted the votes of one who the Comelec en banc declared, was never a candidate to begin with. And the provincial Comelec supervisor forthwith proclaimed him.
What happens now when the High Tribunal rules that Comelec was right? That dura lex indeed is sed lex? That vox populi cannot overrule what is patently illegal to begin with? What indeed is the point of having laws and rules if these can be waved by those tasked to make laws, and exceptions made by those tasked to implement those laws?
* * *
In the aftermath of the first automated electoral process in this country, whiners who confess to being computer-illiterate, or even those who claim to understand but actually don’t as shown by their inane pronouncements, have suddenly claimed that they were cheated. The public is more amused than amazed.
Some claim to having been approached by “operators”, a term given to election “fixers” who claim to being able to cheat for a candidate, or against an opponent. These operators have “patron saints”, perhaps the most visible having been Garci of cellphone fame. They were given illegal and indecent proposals, for a fat fee. One could guess who among those whining in the congressional circus were “had” by con artists. And who were not, but did not hale the “operators” to the nearest police station, because they were still wondering if they could raise the money to engage the illegal services. Now that the machines showed that they lost, most miserably at that, they parade their woes and hope that the public would sympathize.
Someone trotted out a masked creature who looked like a marsupial which Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr. called a “koala bear”. The costume might have been filched from some cinema props warehouse by a washed-out character actor who now dabbles in politics along with a sidekick. Now the cinematic duo threatens to bring out a “Batman” who shall this week (kuno) spill the details of the “cheating mechanics” that “Robin” the koala regaled us with.
Imagine what would have happened had Comelec agreed to a parallel manual count in the clustered precincts, just to verify the automated count? Then we would not have been entertained by “Koala bears” and congresswomen flaunting faulty English and brandishing plastic chips she could not properly identify.
* * *
Non-smokers also had their heyday, a long shelf life of about a week, asking the newly-elected president to give up smoking. For goodness sakes…unable to pin him down on anything of great national significance, they choose his smoking as such a great vice. They never excoriated Erap for smoking Lucky Strikes, probably because they zeroed in on his “greater” vices. But for Noynoy, his smoking was such a great national concern.
Oh well, if they can’t stand the smoke, then they are under no obligation to see him in person. Not that I smoke and therefore write in defense of the habit. I kicked the habit three decades ago, when in the course of a two-month European trip, I ran out of my reams of Marlboro brought from Manila. I consumed my entire stock of weed in of all places, Copenhagen, where liquor and cigarettes are taxed to the max. Refusing to buy a pack of Marlboros which cost me ten pesos per pack back home at an outrageous equivalent in kronor of 100 pesos, I just stopped, “cold turkey”. But picking on Noynoy’s smoking habit, which indeed helps in times of stress (the president-elect hardly drinks, by the way), simply shows wala nang masabing iba.
* * *
This is the Philippines, where thousands make piles by fooling others, where con artists abound, from “budol-budol” to “dugo-dugo” to sellers of lands with fake titles, and counterfeit money as well as purveyors of pirated DVD’s. With Garci and Bedol outmoded by newfangled machines, the con artists try their scam on witless victims. Truly amazing that many got conned. And truly amusing that these were people who deserved to lose.
But, enough of the amusement. There is a leader who needs to be proclaimed so that we could move on with our lives, and move this nation forward as well. He is the least likely to have participated in any funny deals with any con artists, because the con men and con woman he opposed would never ever have wished him well.
By the grace of God and the sovereign will of the people, Benigno Simeon Aquino III has been chosen to lead us. Whether or not this amuses Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her family or not, it is amazing that we even give the time of day to all the whiners who cry foul because they were conned, or cry foul because their “usual operations” did not work, and finally, whoever the people chose, thank God, the process reported.
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