TODAY IS GOV. GRACE PADACA?S DEADLINE FOR filing a motion for reconsideration with the Commission on Elections, to seek a reversal of the Second Division?s decision declaring Benjamin Dy the rightful winner of the 2007 election for governor of Isabela.

The decision was not a surprise; a throng of Dy family members and political supporters crowded the Comelec offices the day the voluminous ruling was promulgated. (This meant, not that they are an unusually tightly knit family?aren?t most politicians???but that they had advance word of the favorable finding.) And yet the Comelec?s decision still took the breath away.

Padaca won reelection in 2007 by winning with a margin of just over 17,000 votes. The curiously timed decision of the Comelec?s controversial Second Division is based, essentially, on its finding that an enormous number of ballots had been filled up by just one person. How many ballots? About 18,000--or just enough for Dy to overtake Padaca?s lead.

Public opinion immediately began to cement around the notion that Padaca?s ouster-in-the-making was the second blow of a triple whammy aimed at the opposition. The week before, it was Bulacan Gov. Joselito Mendoza who was unseated; perhaps Pampanga Gov. ?Among Ed? Panlilio was next?

Broadcast journalist Anthony Taberna, both in his radio show and on TV, has correctly pointed out that rumors about an administration counterattack against the three governors began circulating many months before Mendoza, Padaca and Panlilio all decided to affiliate themselves, either formally or loosely, with the Liberal Party. Strictly speaking then, their current affiliation could not have been the reason for their troubles (in Panlilio?s case it seems only a matter of time) with the Comelec.

And yet: politics is addition, not only in terms of members but also in terms of motives. The fact that the three Luzon governors were now affiliated with the leading opposition party must have played a part in their belated election troubles.

Ever since she won an improbable victory over incumbent Faustino Dy Jr. in 2004, Padaca has been a thorn on the side of the administration, the face of principled and politically effective opposition to the allies of the administration. Panlilio eked out a dramatic victory over two of President Macapagal-Arroyo?s personal friends in the race for governor in her home province in 2007. And also in 2007, Panlilio and Mendoza were instrumental in exposing the disbursement of cash-filled paper bags to local officials, right inside Malacañang. (That exposé may have marked the true point of no return in President Macapagal-Arroyo?s eternally sliding survey ratings.)

Even without their new affiliation, then, the three governors were vulnerable to political machinations?because they were all facing electoral protests. Casting their lot with the Liberals could only have increased their vulnerability.

In the case of Padaca, the 2008 Magsaysay Awardee for government service, the belated case Benjamin Dy filed against her prospered against both law and logic. Romulo Macalintal, the President?s own election lawyer, accused a Comelec ?syndicate? of a ?very whimsical, capricious and arbitrary? ruling. He took the Second Division to task especially for asserting that only one person filled out some 18,000 ballots?a task, he said, that was all but humanly impossible. ?The invalidation of thousands of ballots appears suspicious and incredible. Can you imagine one person writing 17,000 to 18,000 ballots all by himself? His hand would have swelled up,? he said.

Among many others, the Makati Business Club expressed serious concern about the decision. Citing her performance in office, the influential business group concluded: ?in this Comelec ruling, the biggest loser is not Gov. Padaca but her constituents that are being deprived of a leader of proven administrative competence, that embodies honest governance and exercises political will in addressing the problems confronting their community.?

There?s the real tragedy: The incomprehensible decision of the Comelec?s Second Division effectively, and quite literally, ?dis-Graced? an entire province.