In the fog of the grief and rage that the nation was going through while it buried the 44 Special Action Force commandos who died in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, two body blows were stealthily delivered on the Philippine electoral system.
One was Commission on Elections Chair Sixto Brillantes’ signing of a P269-million deal (supposedly discounted) with Smartmatic for the “major repairs and replacement of destroyed machines” to be used in the automated 2016 polls—which he did three days before he retired. It was a patent midnight deal, but Brillantes was unapologetic, even defiant, about it: “Despite all of the attacks, I still signed the deal with Smartmatic. I did not have to sign it but I signed it… They kept on attacking us, so I signed it.”
In other words, pique was what got the man to seal the deal, and his approval of it was simply the final finger he could flash at his critics. And his critics include a sizable majority of the Filipino electorate who are questioning the string of contracts he has signed with Smartmatic, whose precinct count optical scan machines have been independently proven inefficient, error-prone and not entirely free of manipulation. Yet, to such valid concerns, and in contravention of his avowed duty to ensure the cleanest, most honest elections he could manage under his watch, he responded with a dismissive, petulant sense of impunity.
Perhaps Brillantes learned only too well from his predecessor Benjamin Abalos that however outrageous his conduct as Comelec chair, making him accountable for it would be a slog, and good luck to anyone who tries. On the same day that he delivered his farewell speech at the Comelec headquarters in Manila, the Pasay City Regional Trial Court Branch 112 acquitted Abalos of electoral sabotage on the basis of what it said was the prosecution’s failure to “establish any participation, direct or otherwise, of accused Abalos in the manipulation of the election results.” This is the second acquittal for Abalos; last October, another court dismissed 11 counts of electoral sabotage filed against him in January 2012 by a Comelec then already led by Brillantes.
What exactly was Abalos in the dock for? He was accused, along with lawyer Yogie Martirizar, the head of the provincial board of canvassers of North Cotabato, of rigging the election results from that province to ensure the victory of the Arroyo administration’s senatorial ticket in 2007. Martirizar would subsequently become a state witness and attest to the manipulation that happened.
It wasn’t an isolated case. Lilian Suan-Radam, provincial election supervisor of South Cotabato, made a similar charge in the case dismissed last October—that Abalos ordered her to make sure that the results would be a clean 12-0 sweep in favor of the administration ticket in her area.
But Judge Jesus Mupas didn’t think Martirizar’s testimony was sufficient. There was deliberate manipulation in the North Cotabato vote count, sure—but “such admission cannot be simply taken hook, line, and sinker as against accused Abalos,” the judge ruled. “Though it may seem that the participants thereto acted upon the alleged ‘instruction’ of Abalos, no other proof was introduced to establish this important fact.”
Perhaps the prosecution failed to present a stronger case? If that were so, this wouldn’t be the first time that government lawyers dropped the ball in a high-profile case. Still, wouldn’t it have been commonsensical for the court to ask if it was truly possible, in the scheme of things, for a lowly Comelec functionary to act on her own to game the election results—not even for local candidates, but for the senatorial candidates? Isn’t it more plausible to consider that she summoned the guts to do what she did because she had orders from above, and was assured that higher-ups had her back—which was exactly what Martirizar testified to?
But “it was not sufficiently established that these subsequent instructions came from Abalos. It was just presumed that the same is from him,” said the judge. In the court’s view, it is an entirely realistic scenario for local Comelec personnel to go rogue, break the law and tamper with election results—and know which party to favor, mind—on the mere “presumption” that they are doing the Comelec chair a favor.
As usual, it’s the small fry that fries while the big fish swims away—again.