Have we progressed or have we degenerated in our conduct of elections? Voting and vote count have now gone automated, though belatedly. But that we can now determine victor and vanquished in less than a day is something not to crow about before the league of nations, many of which have been into this cutting [...]
It is a memory that must serve us right. During vote counting in the May 2010 elections, compact flash cards, election returns and ballots were found in a Cagayan de Oro dumpsite. Some sleuthing by Sen. Koko Pimentel led to the dump truck’s registry—it belonged to the city hall of Cagayan de Oro. Months later, the dump truck’s driver was found dead. Let us review the timeline.
Sometime in the latter part of this year, our 95-year-old mother became terminally ill. She had been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease some eight years earlier. Out of respect for her privacy, I shall not mention the disease, but its common name alone is already a death sentence. At the onset of that diagnosis then, supported by a biopsy result, the medical specialist had advised me to prepare for her eventual death. “Within less than a year,” he had said. Eight years later, the medical prophecy had not happened.
