IT'S UP TO THE SUPREMES

The Long View
IT'S UP TO THE SUPREMES
By Manuel L. Quezon III
InquirerLast updated 02:50am (Mla time) 06/28/2007

Team Unity started it. When its spokesman Tonypet Albano (who seems to have disappeared) boasted that the administration senatorial slate obtained 12-0 in the province, he never produced any proof. The only proof was the say-so of provincial officials, which is no proof at all. The proof should have consisted of papers, but neither he nor the provincial leaders waved them around, though they were entitled to copies.

How could they? Lintang Bedol says the documents were stolen. Including the copies of election results that the law says should be given to electoral watchdogs. Ask the National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections. Ask the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting. So they can’t say, one way or another, if any other set of documents being, belatedly, waved around by officials are genuine or not. Yet the law mandates that they be given copies, precisely to provide a means to determine whether or not the election results have a basis in fact and weren’t manufactured.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman himself said the claims of a 12-0 sweep were “statistically improbable,” the improbability being based on 19 senatorial candidates getting no votes at all in all of the province’s 22 municipalities. As a former judge, Benjamin Abalos knows that making such an observation in public has legal consequences: the Supreme Court, for one, can take judicial notice of the statement. Abalos’ observation leaves the door wide open for the application of the Lagumbay Doctrine, which says that when the number of registered voters does not match the community’s voting population, the votes should be invalidated. Candidates not getting any votes at all might be another kind of statistical improbability to which the doctrine could be applied.

One observer has noted that the Comelec, in the past, was told by the Supreme Court that where fraud is so palpable from the election return itself -- that is, "res ipsa loquitur" [the thing speaks for itself] -- the poll body can determine if a statistical improbability took place.

This brings us back to Bedol, the missing election documents, and the other set of documents the Comelec says it recovered. What were stolen from Bedol were the provincial certificate of canvass and the first copies of the Municipal Certificates of Canvass (MCOCs). What the Comelec gathered were the second copies of the MCOCs, or the ones pasted on the wall. But the provincial COC remains lost and the MCOCs belatedly brought forward can’t be compared to any provincial COC or the watchdog documents -- or copies for the political parties -- which have never been provided, because they disappeared. This situation speaks for itself.

So now, the second copy of the MCOCs are being tabulated by the Special Board of Canvassers convened in Maguindanao province. The board is taking on the role that would normally be played by the Provincial Board of Canvassers, which would then submit a report to the National Board of Canvassers in Manila. But why a special board is substituting for the provincial board and on the basis of what authority are juicy questions themselves.

Meanwhile, in Maguindanao, for every objection made, the special board has been saying: Sorry, we’re only here to add things up; take your questions to the national board in Manila. They’re counting fast, so they can produce a report, which will say: based on the documents (which we did not look into, in terms of their contents, because your honors from Manila said they looked OK, and it is not up to us to figure out on what basis you said so), the following candidates got such-and-such votes in Maguindanao.

The Comelec, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers in Manila, in the meantime, is anxiously watching the clock. They have a deadline to meet, which is the beginning of the term of the newly elected senators on June 30. By that date, the Comelec can say that based on past precedents, it needs to proclaim all the senators-elect.

No time to make its own determination, it can say. It can then accept the report of the Maguindanao special board, and say: Let these results be added to the national total, and based on the national total, let us fill the final vacancy in the Senate. Any objections? The Comelec can say: Sorry, but this is not the proper forum. Republic Act 7166, the Synchronized Elections Act, says that for senators, “no pre-proclamation cases shall be allowed on matters relating to the preparation, transmission, receipt, custody and appreciation of the election returns or the certificates of canvass, as the case may be.”

But the Comelec had every chance, and all the necessary authority, to do the counting and appreciation of documents conscientiously. But sorry, the clock’s ticking. We shall proclaim now, everyone can sort it out later. The special board said it couldn’t attend to questions or objections? Neither can we, because we have to meet the deadline, and proclaim someone, anyone, under whatever circumstances, suspicious or not, the 12th senator-elect for 2007. Blame it on Bedol. Blame it on our special board. Blame the people of Maguindanao. Pontius Pilate would have been proud. Gotcha! Pass the hot potato and let it land on the Senate Electoral Tribunal’s lap!

As Ferdinand Marcos loved to say, “Aw, c’mon.” The Supreme Court can’t permit itself to be led around by the nose like this.

The Supreme Court spokesman urged the Comelec not to make any appeal “moot and academic” until it hears both sides. But if the national board, upon receipt of the special provincial board’s report, accepts it, and makes a proclamation -- to meet the June 30 start of term -- the Court would have been outfoxed by a Comelec eager to wash its hands of a mess of its own making.

The people of Maguindanao deserve better. The public deserves better. Fair play requires a Supreme Court temporary restraining order on the Maguindanao proceedings.

Now.