The People's Mandate is not Easy to Erase

All the Filipino people can do now is pray, pray that the mandate of the May 10 polls will be preserved. Right now, the hearings being conducted by the House committee on electoral reforms and suffrage have succeeded in casting doubts on the legality and success of the first automated national elections in the country. Reading from written scripts, the complainants, mostly losing candidates who hold national positions and in danger of losing them, took turns in attacking the Comelec and Smartmatic as well as enumerating alleged instances of cheating, fraud, wrong procedures and technicalities that supposedly happened during the May 10 polls. And the worst fear has been heard. Due to non-use of digital signatures by the board of election inspectors (BEIs) when election returns were transmitted, the results would be, according to one of the complainants, null and void. Thus, the said complainant continued, the May 10 polls should be considered illegal and the results be made null and void. It was suggested by the complainant that a comprehensive manual audit must be made and if it is not possible, a new national elections should be held.

A question should be raised: who has the authority to declare an elections null and void? It should be the Comelec only, unless the complainants file a strong petition and ask the Supreme Court to nullify it. The House committee is not in a position to do it. The purpose of the hearing is hear and find out what happened during the May 10 polls so that if there is a need to improve the just-passed Automated Election Law, now is the time to gather data and pass subsequent legislation to improve the law in preparation for the 2013 polls.

But the Comelec is all convinced that the May 10 polls was a resounding success.

Surely, there is a hand manipulating these events surrounding the recent polls. It is difficult to pinpoint just what is going on. Is it a well-oiled machinery to derail the results, or is it an instant collaboration of losers coming out to prevent the mandate of the 2010 polls from being fulfilled?

Confusing as it may, all the people can do now is pray and then go out and express their reactions to everyone. One strong move is to gather outside Congress who will conduct an official canvass of the votes for the presidential and vice-presidential positions and demonstrate their disapproval over attempts to derail the May 10 polls. The mandate of the people cannot simply go to waste because of unproven allegations from sour losers.