Doing the Right Thing for 2016

If there is any legacy the administration of President Aquino must leave behind, it should definitely be to “do the right things” in the run-up to the May 2016 elections by making sure the country will have peaceful, credible and orderly elections.

To begin with, Andy Bautista was a good choice as Commission on Elections chief because he clearly does not carry any baggage and has declared his “loyalty to the people” and not to any appointing power. Despite pressure from certain interest groups to revert to a half-automated, half manual mongrel for the elections, Andy has kept his cool and went to the process of testing and seeing the impracticality of adopting a hybrid (as its proponents prefer it to be called) system for the upcoming polls.

Let’s face it, a majority of Filipinos are convinced that the last two elections (especially in 2010 when we tried automation for the first time) have been credible and the results widely accepted since the results did not veer away from the surveys that showed then-Senator Noynoy Aquino leading his closest rivals by around 20 percentage points.

During our Manila Rotary Club forum where Andy Bautista was the guest speaker, he said shifting to the hybrid system at this stage would entail more costs since we would need 900,000 election inspectors to man the 100,000 polling precincts – which would mean additional allocations for the honorarium of P3,000 plus extra costs for transportation, service credits, fees for testing and verification. All in all, Andy said, the cost would reach up to P30 billion. Besides, there are only 630,000 public school teachers who could be utilized during the elections (and that should be on a voluntary basis), and Education Secretary Brother Armin Luistro is loathe to deploy more teachers than necessary because he doesn’t want to endanger them – something that we have seen happen in the past with manual elections.

Whether it be Smartmatic, Globematic or whatever matic form or shape, the key is to stick to automation because it is the only one acceptable to many people who want the elections to be “credible” – the only word acceptable in any election.

(The Manila Rotary Club is now considered to be one of the few credible forums that would give potential presidentiables and senatoriables a chance as guest speakers to give a deeper perspective into their agenda and qualifications. The Manila Rotary is composed of top businessmen, top foreign diplomats, industry leaders and media practitioners.)

A good case in point that the President did right in preparation for the May 2016 elections is his appointment of Lt. Gen. Hernando Iriberri as the new Armed Forces Chief of Staff replacing General Gregorio Catapang who retired yesterday. As always, critics have something to say about the appointment but as the new “tech- and media-savvy” AFP chief rightly pointed out, his record should speak for itself – among them his stint as Commander of the 503rd Infantry Brigade of the 5th Infantry Division in 2013 that saw Abra – a province that has gained the unflattering moniker of “killing fields” – experiencing its most peaceful elections ever. As native Abrenians tell me, “peaceful” is not a word normally associated with Abra.