Tuesday, May 15, 2007 Editorial: Comelec and other weakness
IT'S TOO early to tell, but the performance of the Commission on Elections in Monday's balloting and succeeding actions in connection with the just-concluded political exercise will be crucial to the already flawed image of the constitutional body.
How will the public grade Comelec and its people this time? Would the public rating be enough for the agency to redeem its notorious image of being part of the problem instead of being part of the solution in the country's electoral system?
Truth to tell, the Comelec has been getting more notorious each passing election year, exacerbated by the so-called "Hello Garci" scandal that has placed the honesty of the 2004 general elections in question and the legitimacy of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo presidency in serious doubt.
Just how rotten has the image of the Comelec become before the people, especially the youth, to whom we, the adult members of society, will eventually bequeath our democratic system of government earlier bequeathed to us by our forefathers? The picture is bleak if results of a local study have to be believed.
Corrupt Comelec officials
The study, called Ateneo Electoral Survey 2007 by Neil Ryan P. Pancho and Isabel Actub, polled 670 of the more than 7,000 students and faculty members of three colleges of the Ateneo de Davao University.
In that study made public for the first time last week, the students identified "corrupt Comelec officials" as No. 1 among five "perceived weaknesses of Philippine elections" with 81.3 percent of the respondents agreeing. This is followed by "unfulfilled promises of political leaders" with 80 percent, "slow counting of ballots," with 75.5 percent, "unthinking electorate" with 69.6percent and "poor quality of candidates" 69.4 percent.
Suggested solutions
The Comelec and the lawmakers should listen to the suggested solutions of the students to the rampant problems attending the electoral system.
They hinted it by way they answer the survey questions. For instance, more than four-fifths of the respondents favor automated election and a combination of automated and manual counting.
They think that the best partners of Comelec in ensuring clean elections are the church, academe, NGOs, mass media and political parties in that order.
Restoring order
And the military and their perennial detractors should listen carefully to this particular finding - in restoring order during election, the youth surveyed "trust in" the military (30.1 percent), church (26.9 percent), judiciary (13.4 percent), mass media (7.5 percent) and executive branch (only 3.9 percent).
We suggest that Comelec and policy-makers get a copy of the study and make it a basis for a deeper probe to maximize its usefulness in crafting new policies and other reforms.
