In any democracy, what matters the most is that the true will of the people is expressed and upheld, in a free, peaceful, orderly and honest manner. That is the very essence of elections, where we are able to choose the leaders who will occupy public positions of trust and responsibility, in order to serve us. We expect of our leaders to be true to their oath as public servants, to be loyal to the Republic and to the Flag, to be good and honest in their dealings and discharge of their functions, to be of genuine service to the people, and more than anything else, to be God-fearing and God-centered.
Thus, through elections, we are called upon to decide as to who will best serve and represent our sentiments and aspirations, and in our best judgment, who may be willing to be sincerely accountable to us as a body electorate. This is democracy.
If and when that right to choose is violated through cheating, and replacing the true will of the people with fraud, then the trust of the people on the system erodes miserably. The question is then raised whether those who have been proclaimed are the true winners to be the true representatives of the people.
Without the full assurance, yes, full and absolute guarantee that the system is flawless and 100% reliable, then the moral authority as well as legal privilege of the supposed winner becomes doubtful. This is not democracy.
For now, we can only rely on the assurance of "tuwid na daan" governance. With that, we must move on but continue to perfect the system and remove all the imperfections.
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What happened really or at least, what appears to be happening or may have happened?
ReplyDeleteThere were PCOS machines which malfunctioned. Or which did not work on the election day. They did not serve their purpose, that is, to insure an uninterrupted and fast elections. Canvassing had to wait for the PCOS to transmit the results, or for the BEI or the Board of Election Inspectors to bring the ballots to the Canvassers and have them processed by another PCOS machine.
There was an alleged pattern which would allegedly show some kind of tampering or manipulation of the results. This of course, have yet to be proven.
During the random manual audit, where a precinct is selected and the PCOS generated results are counterchecked by the manual results, discrepancies have been noted.
Then there are stories about the absence of the "black light" have encouraged the use of "magic ink", that the failure to have the source code examined within a reasonable period have raised doubts to the point that the CF cards may have been pre-programmed, and also, there were news about rejected ballots, double voting etc.
Even granting that these lapses or defects would not lead to any conclusion about cheating or computer fraud, it is important that the public must know the reasons for these things. There is no room for being defensive by just shrugging off criticisms. We need an objective explanation. In fairness.