I?M WRITING THIS THE DAY BEFORE THE elections and don?t quite know what?s going to happen. As I said before, ours is a very strange case. It?s not that the surveys could be wrong about the elections, it?s that the elections could be wrong about the surveys.

I never thought I?d be saying this?truly GMA has stood everything on its head?but this is the first time I?ve really been thankful for the surveys. Particularly with the Comelec being what it is, and particularly with automation being what it is feared to be, can you imagine this election taking place without the surveys? Anyone could be the winner?including GMA herself by the voters insisting on making her stay?and no one would be the wiser. Or since everyone would be the wiser, no one would be in any position to protest. Or since everyone would be in a position to protest, which really means the same thing, no one would be in a position to do something about it.

This time around, and for all the times we will continue to have the Comelec we have now, the surveys have mitigated their bukol of dumbing elections by cranking up the bandwagon?in our culture particularly nothing can dissuade more than being told, or made to believe that, ?You?d be a sucker to vote for this sucker??by being virtually the only iceberg to the Titanic of wholesale cheating. Without the surveys, even that other check to massive cheating, parallel (manual) count, would not have much substance. It could always be dismissed as faulty, the product of pilot error as opposed to the reliability, if not infallibility, of the machine. Forgetting that the pilots who run, or rig, the machine are even more error-prone, getting more and more to be so with every ring of the cash register.

I?ve been laughing my head off over the last few weeks at the losing candidates (in the surveys at least, though in this case that may be a superfluous qualifier) suddenly discovering the folly of the SWS and Pulse Asia surveys in particular. And conversely, as in the case of the Villar camp, discovering the wisdom of the Issues and Advocacy Center (huh?) which said Villar had gotten within striking distance of Aquino.

That was true of the Gordon and Erap camps as well. Shortly before the elections, text messages flew thick and fast apprising the public that Noynoy?s relatives were shareholders or officials of the SWS and Pulse Asia, which might have been true except for one thing. Both of those organizations said earlier this year that Noynoy?s numbers had plunged to unbelievable lows and Manny?s had soared to unbelievable highs, a thing that tremendously demoralized the Noynoy camp and made for much finger-pointing. The Villar camp did not disbelieve it. In fact they not only did not disbelieve it, they trumpeted it as proof Villar was the real phenomenon in the elections.

Gilbert Remulla was especially strident in saying those things. After he loses his senatorial bid (badly), he would do well to retire to pause and read to improve his mind. I commend Aesop, especially the fable that has to do with the fox and the grapes.

I hope I?m wrong, though I often surprise myself at not being so (at least about these things, I?ve been wrong about women?s ages), but we might just end up over the next few days, or weeks, comparing the relative believability of the Comelec against SWS and Pulse Asia, or more personally the relative integrity of Jose Melo against Mahar Mangahas and Pepe Miranda. Or more to the point, we might end up over the next few days, or weeks, comparing which is the vote teller and which the bank teller, or which knows how to count votes and which one knows how to count bills.

As I write this, I worry in particular about the possibility that the elections may turn out to be reasonably fraud-free below the level of president and vice president, and unreasonably fraud-ridden above. That is to say that the winning senators, congressmen, party-list representatives, governors, mayors and sundry local officials will be the ones the voters voted for while the winning president and vice president will not. That way any attempt to protest the results of the presidential and vice presidential race will run up against the sentiments of the senators et al. who won and who would want to defend their victory.

That prospect is very real. More to the point, it is perfectly doable: The machines are under the Comelec/Smartmatic?s complete control; they can produce any results they want.

Truly, you have to stand in awe at what GMA has done to this country. Two decades and a half after Marcos left in a huff, we?re back to fearing rather than trusting the very institutions (there?s the Armed Forces too under Delfin Bangit) tasked to uphold the people?s will. Nothing shows that more than that Bangit has to appeal to the public to trust him and the Armed Forces. Not unlike a pilot trying to calm the passengers while the plane?s left engine is on fire. Why shouldn?t the public be deathly afraid? The last time somebody stole the vote, she got away with it anyway. And thought she could continue to get away with it any way.

The first thing Noynoy Aquino needs to do after he becomes president by election or by eruption is not to kill all the lawyers (we?ll need some of them) but to kill all the commissioners. I mean that metaphorically, of course, in the sense that Shakespeare put it, but I?m willing to be persuaded otherwise, or in the sense that Shakespeare?s character, Dick the Butcher, proposed it. Democracy starts with the vote. Defending democracy starts with defending the vote.

Meanwhile, let?s wait and see. Preferably while listening to the band called Rage Against the Machine.