Probe cheating in all past polls

The filing of criminal charges against former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo et al. for electoral sabotage brings to sharp focus the unmitigated fraud and irregularities committed during elections.

I hope this would be a continuing process, not merely a “ningas cogon” affair. The right of suffrage is one of the most fundamental democratic rights.

The Supreme Court, despite its credibility being dented by the current impeachment proceedings against its chief justice, deserves credit for upholding the constitutionality of the Commission on Elections-Department of Justice joint panel that filed the electoral sabotage raps against the respondents. However, I believe that to be more credible and effective in restoring the people’s trust in the electoral system, the  Comelec-DOJ joint panel must be expanded and its life extended to cover poll offenses committed not only during the 2004 and 2007 elections but also those in previous ones.

From Quirino up to Arroyo, scores of candidates became hapless victims of electoral fraud and cheating. In the 1949 elections, Claro M. Recto was robbed of his No. 1 senatorial slot due to “dagdag-bawas” operations. Cory Aquino’s victory against Marcos in the 1986 snap elections would have amounted to nothing if not for the People Power Revolution, while doubts persist if President Fidel V. Ramos really won over  Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago in the 1992 elections, and Loren Legarda trounced Noli de Castro in the race for vice president in the 2004 elections. After the 2007 senatorial election, Juan Miguel Zubiri sat as senator until last year when he resigned after the Senate Electoral Tribunal unearthed massive cheating in Maguindanao, and “Koko” Pimentel was proclaimed the true No.12 winner over him.

In the 1967 mid-term senatorial polls, my father, former labor secretary and congressman Emilio Espinosa Jr., one of the top five winning candidates in the earlier poll count, was clearly cheated and eventually ended up No. 9. Testimonies came out later from Comelec sources that votes for my father were transferred to another candidate through “dagdag-bawas” operations and his votes from certain precincts were crossed out and replaced with zero votes.

Of course this is now water under the bridge. Some of the victims have passed away, while others are now in their twilight years. But honesty, truth and justice dictate that the records be set in proper perspective and that history be rewritten to reflect the true will and choice of the people in those elections.

If the people’s trust in our electoral system were to be restored, the Comelec, the DOJ and even Congress should conduct full-dress investigations into all reported fraudulent and questionable elections in the past. This would give justice to the victim-candidates in those elections.

—NANETTE M. ESPINOSA,

Nanespi@aol.com