ONNIE Puno went to
the US of A to attend to the wedding of his daughter, set in California’s
beautiful Napa Valley. He has been in and out of the US of A, as this is where
his family resides. Everyone and his mother in the DILG knows this, and they
find it normal when their boss is out of the country. And he designates one or
the other of his numerous undersecretaries, usually senior Usec Ed Soliman, as
his officer-in-charge.
All of a sudden, three days after Ronnie had already landed
in San Francisco International, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita issued an
appointment for a DILG officer-in-charge. And it was not one of the usual
undersecretaries, which is the usual practice anywhere in the bureaucracy.
Ermita designate current DPWH Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane.
That’s not just it. Ermita even announced that Puno went to
the US of A on medical leave. Either Ronnie is sick or he is undergoing a
medical check-up, Malacañang explained. Still, curiously, why Ebdane?
Ebdane of course used to be PNP chief, before the Doña made
him public works czar, and after a brief stint as Defense secretary right after
Nonong Cruz resigned because he could no longer take the many machinations in
the stinking palace beside the stinking river. Yet again, if Puno would be
absent for ten to twelve days, why not one of his undersecretaries? And why
Ebdane, not DOTC’s Larry Mendoza, a Batangueno like Ermita? I thought Ebdane has
his hands full with almost 200 billion pesos in the current budget, for Doña
Gloria’s "legacy" infrastructure program?
Now palace woodwork whisperers of course have long told
everybody who cared to listen that Ermita and Puno do not exactly like each
other. One is Lakas, the other is Kampi. Besides, one used to get the Doña’s
undivided attention when it came to politics, yes, undivided, until he made the
mistake of telling the cabinet that Cha-Cha won’t wash. And until Louie
Villafuerte who authored House Resolution 1109 suddenly withdrew his signature
on that piece of crap. That was the signal for the knives to be sharpened
against Ronnie the Tree.
And Ermita found just the right time to pull the knife and
strike against the Tree. While the Tree is away, selecting the vintage wines
that would be uncorked on July 4, which is when the grand but intimate wedding
is scheduled.
As corollary damage, Ermita hinted, rather maliciously I
might add, that Ronnie, who has announced his vice-presidential candidacy, and
has been moving throughout the archipelago using a newly-purchased Lear jet, is
well … sick. Now that’s a low blow.
Inisahan na nga, siniraan pa ng pailalim. Kandidato na nga,
sinabi pang may sakit. Aray naman. That’s not the way Batanguenos usually fight,
preferring "harapan" as they usually say, but then again, years inside the snake
pit can really change culture and nature.
Wait till Ronnie the Tree comes back late next week.
***
Apropos what we wrote yesterday about the failed automation
ploy of the Comelec, let me propose two things, just so readers will not say I
cannot be constructive:
First, ask the Comelec to amend the implementing rules and
regulations for the conduct of the 2010 elections, or if need be, get Congress
to amend the Omnibus Election Law or whatever other legislation needs to be
amended, in order to segregate the list of national candidates from the list of
local candidates in the official ballot and design the two sets of official
ballots accordingly for the National Printing Office to follow.
The elections will still be synchronized, as this is one of
those specifically weird constitutional edicts. But hey, dura lex sed lex.
What will be changed is just the ballot, and the
corresponding election returns (ER’s), SOV’s and COC’s.. Instead of printing a
kilometric-length ballot, print two sets. On one, we list down the choices for
President, VP, 12 senators, one congressman for the district, and the long line
of parties in the party-list system.
Two, adopt the Open Election System proposed by Gus Lagman
and Christian Monsod who once ran the Commission credibly and creditably, as its
chair. It costs less, and all we will need are thousands of personal computers
linked to the national main frame of the Comelec. Lagman estimated the cost at 4
billion pesos, with a subsidiary advantage – Comelec can donate the PC’s to the
public schools after the elections. The OES means manual voting, similar to
before, and manual canvassing via the ER’s, except that consolidation of the BEI-certified
ER’s in each precinct is consolidated, based on those ER’s, and canvassed by
computer, in full view of watchers and Comelec officials.
Hence, the canvassing, which is where the dagdag-bawas and
the Garci, Bedol et al creatures thrive at manipulation, will be made faster,
right after the ER’s are accomplished, also in full view of the board of
election inspectors and the party and candidate watchers, in situ.
Meanwhile, the ballots for local candidates, which means
governors and their vice, mayors and their vice, as well as bokales and
councillors, are done the same way as before – manual voting, manual canvassing,
manual transfer to certificates of canvass and statement of votes from the ER’s.
Bantay-sarado naman ang lokal ng mga lokal. That is the main focus of local
candidates and their legion of watchful leaders and supporters.
National media can oversee the process which will be faster,
because transmission is done electronically, and time is cut considerably
because the voter writes in only 16 names: president, vice, 12 senators (or even
less if he finds but a few worthy of his vote, which is my usual practice), one
congressman, plus one party.
Comelec prints two sets of ER’s, one national, one local, and
similarly two sets of COC’s. It orders two sets of ballot boxes, one national,
another for the local.
Is there time to do this? Most certainly so.
This also gives even the party-less national candidates a
better chance, because campaigns can be more focused on national issues, as the
carrying importance of the local candidates, which costs a lot of money,
diminishes especially in the urban centers, which is more than half of the total
electorate.
But will Comelec do this, especially if it cannot shuck off
its fixation for full automation, and more especially, because they already have
11.3 billion pesos in their hands? And will Malacañang allow this?
In any case, it seems like elections are far, far away from the minds of the
denizens of the stinking palace beside the stinking river. It’s still a year
away from curtain time, and they don’t want those curtains to fall down…ever.
