Nothing Is Perfect

The recent automated polls in the Philipines still do not earn the trust and confidence of sour losers and harsh critics. The winners have been proclaimed by Comelec and and Congress but the discontentment about the results and how the national election was managed continue to linger. But if one can just take a hard look at the supposed complaints, it can been concluded that there has not been a convincing evidence of a massive and systematic cheating or fraud by an individual or group of individuals aimed at manipulating the results. The word "manipulation" entails the willful selection of winners irrespective of the mandate of the voters. Nothing has been found or unearthed by the critics.
What they are doing is keep on pounding on the issue of credibility of the election process and the eventual results. In effect, they are looking for a perfect electoral process, and if they found something or sense something that the election authorities and Smartmatic have difficulty explaining, an alarm bell would ring far and wide.
In effect, it is a "fishing expedition". And so far, nothing has been found.
Critics should understand that there is no perfect electoral process. There are always complaints. There will be lapses here and there. But the foray to an automated polls should be viewed with encouragement and full support by the Filipino people. Just to realize that results have been shown to the public hours after the close of voting to protect the people's mandate and quickly spurn any attempt to derail the tallying of the votes by such past dirty tactics like causing brownouts or forcible grabbing of ballot boxes is something. This is a feature that makes automated polls a plus in a third world country like the Philippines, where people in power can just deploy their cheating machinery and manipulate the results every election.
Right now, critics should rest and just help in fine tuning the automated election process. IT experts still doubting the system should begin a teamwork mission of producing a more strengthened and fool-proof poll automation and share their expertise with Comelec's IT experts.
This is by far a country's achievement worth crowing about, not fretting about.
In this Independence Day celebrations by Filipinos, a decision to automate the polls, while not fully perfect, can be compared to a decision by past heroes more than three centuries ago to declare freedom from Spanish colonizers.