Ghosts of past polls haunt Comelec

WHEN the election period began in January this year, the Arroyo administration vowed to ensure that the May 14 polls would be credible, honest, and peaceful. The Commission on Elections (Comelec), the constitutionally ordained guardian of the ballot, also promised the same, with no less than its chairman, Benjamin Abalos Sr., repeatedly making pronouncements that enough measures are being put in place to safeguard the sanctity of election results.

Abalos’s words, however, have hardly been inspiring much confidence in an electorate already distrustful of the Comelec and the way it has presided over past elections in the country. A recent Social Weather Stations survey even finds that seven of 10 registered voters expect vote-buying to happen in the May 2007 elections, while more than half believe that dagdag-bawas (vote shaving-padding) operations will again be resorted to.

Such widespread cynicism is only a reflection of how far the Comelec has sunk in terms of credibility. And even as the commission tries to rebuild the public’s confidence in the institution and in the electoral process, the signals it has been sending out have been rather mixed, leaving many to predict that the 2007 polls will be no different from 2004, which has been described as the dirtiest in the history of Philippine elections.

Hopes remain, of course, that such predictions will not come true. We also hope that this piece will prompt readers to do their part and help monitor the polls.

Read on at pcij.org.