GIVE it to politicians to devise ways to hide their real intentions this coming election.
They can act as placeholders for someone who is really running for the posts, say, for President and hold on till the period of substitution.
Take the case of Senator Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa, a known minion of Duterte, who filed his certificate of candidacy at the last minute, but is actually subbing for Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio who hopes to enter the race at the deadline. Such hypocrisy, such deception. People are being taken for a ride, believing they are so gullible to their claims that she won't run after all.
The electorate is always at the shorter end of the electoral bargain. He/she is promised anything, everything, during the campaign period only to be disappointed later on. But the voters never learn from their disappointments: they still vote for the same misfits every election year!
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The television and radio channels will be the main instruments in the politicians' campaign especially for those running for elective national positions.
And columnists (and writers) at all levels, will be tapped to prepare narratives for the candidates. Expect now all kinds of misinformation, disinformation and deception. Woosh!
I have observed that we rely mainly on automated counting machines but are we so sure that they are free from enterprising manipulators who operate them for a fee? Are we sure there are no insertions in it to favor candidates?
Columnist Federico D. Pascual Jr. correctly observed: The main voting phase that follows will see computerized voting systems taking over after the voter is allowed to be "king for a day" as he fills out his ballot before surrendering it to the scanner-counting machine.
He adds: The poor voter has no way of knowing what goes on in the innards of the automated setup. The next thing he will hear about the process is when the computer systems programmed to operate according to secret code prints out the tabulated results.
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So, is the integrity of the vote-counting machines unassailable? Are there no chances that elections may be rigged through these machines? Pray, tell me, it isn't so.