But much of Mindanao’s allure comes not from its cities but from its hinterlands – the virgin forests, the clear streams and rivers, the flat plains in Bukidnon for example – the very same hinterlands we perceive to be crawling with armed militias, whether secessionist or private armies.

One of my most enjoyable trips to Mindanao actually happened only last year, when I flew to Cagayan de Oro to witness the "Bike for Hope" advocacy of Sen. Pia Cayetano. That trip gave me a chance to sleep over at the Del Monte plantation, drink its pineapple orange juice to my heart’s content and, more importantly, traverse by land the route from Cagayan de Oro City to Davao, cutting across much of Mindanao’s widest portion.

I loved that road trip. The roads were good, the weather was perfect, the drive was pleasant, and we had good stops along the way – at a Jollibee outlet, at a tourist vantage point where you could see the plains of Mindanao all around you – and of course the air was clean and you couldn’t notice the deforestation yet.

I didn’t notice any tension along the route, even though just barely two weeks later there actually was an encounter between the military and the MILF somewhere along that highway. Now I wish I had a video camera because just thinking of the trip makes me feel refreshed all over again; imagine if I actually had a video to remind me of the journey!

The allure of Mindanao does not extend only to those like me with wandering feet; it obviously also holds great allure to those who wish to translate Mindanao’s magic into miracles at the polls. We saw evidence of this in 2004: the video-taped conversations between a man and a woman talking over and over again about voting in certain parts of Mindanao being made to conform to a desired result. This year, as if to mock those of us who felt that the 2004 cheating was an insult that shouldn’t have been forgiven, we again come face to face with this type of magic, albeit of the black kind.

Two days ago I wrote about the suspicious increase in registered voters in such areas as Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi., each province registering an average registered voter increase of between 10 to 20 percent. More than these three provinces, I highlighted the superlative increase in registered voters in Lanao del Sur, where registered voters increased by over 20 percent, in some towns even going as high as 170 or 190 percent!

Maybe I am just a suspicious person by nature, but contrast these increases to the supposed drop in registered voters in Metro Manila, which, by sheer coincidence, is opposition territory. Maybe one of those dropped from the rolls was my officemate Perly, who for the first time in her life couldn’t find her name on the voting list. Never mind that another office mate, Betti Sy, was still on the list; yes, the same Betti Sy who was kidnapped and killed in a very highly publicized case in 2004.

Perly couldn’t vote, and I wonder whether Betti did. Maybe not, unless Betti was registered in Lanao Sur.

A radio listener to "Pananaw sa DWWW 774 kHz" asked: If the birds and the bees have been voting in Lanao since the time of Quirino (that’s 1949!), and still do, what have we been doing about it? The answer, of course, is nothing: nothing, because people obviously profit from this type of electoral system where votes are held in reserve in Mindanao depending on what is needed to overcome opposition votes in Luzon and the Visayas. Yet the incumbent Comelec chair speaks of leaving behind a legacy.

And now comes Maguindanao, with voter turnout in the high 80s and 90s, and, surprise surprise, the number one vote-getter is not a Filipino-Muslim but Ilocos Sur governor Luis "Chavit" Singson, who outpolls Mindanaoans Prospero Pichay, Miguel Zubiri, Sultan Kiram and even Aquilino Pimentel III. Wow. I didn’t know, and wouldn’t have suspected, that the Maguindanaoans were that aware of the excellent leadership of Governor Singson – and over and above their knowledge of the excellent work of Butch Pichay and Migs Zubiri in the House!

Is this Chavit magic charm at work? Or are magicians working their magic through the canvassing in Mindanao? And, as Maguindanao goes, does it follow that so goes the nation?

Hmm….wasn’t there supposedly an Oplan Mercury Rising, and wasn’t Maguindanao one of those provinces identified as an area where the electoral black magic would come into play? And in that list, wasn’t Lanao del Sur another one, the same Lanao del Sur where voter registration jumped by more than 50 percent in most towns, and 170 or 190 percent in others?

Once again we will go down in the record books, and once again the record won’t be all that sterling….one country in an age of internet and SMS and VoIPs where the birds and the bees and the dead people keep on voting and the quick count is really a slow count and nuisance candidates are allowed to steal votes from genuine ones and where more than 150 people die yet the elections are regarded as "generally peaceful".

Thank you, Chairman Abalos, for the legacy best represented by the magic of Mindanao.