Look for the cheats, not for the real winner

SEN. CHIZ Escudero’s idea of probing whether or not the late actor Fernando Poe Jr. won in the 2004 presidential election is a useless, wasteful exercise of legislative time and money. Imagine the time, money and effort that would be wasted in counting each of the 32 million votes cast in that election. The probe would be a stupid exercise, it would not serve the national interest; it is meant simply to satisfy some people’s curiosity.

Hardly anyone who ran for public office will admit losing fair and square in an election. It’s only in the Philippines where election candidates never lose; they are just “cheated.” The 2004 election was no exception. It was another farcical, cheating exercise like other elections before it. Besides, Congress is for crafting laws.

Cheating has been the election standard since Elpidio Quirino beat Jose P. Laurel (wartime president, former Supreme Court Justice, and a distinguished senator) in a bloody and fraudulent election in 1949. Remarkably, election cheating continues to this day because nobody gets jailed for it. Senator Escudero will do Laurel an injustice if he hangs up FPJ’s picture in Malacañang but not Laurel’s. The latter was allegedly also deprived of the presidency.

It was sufficiently shown in the vote recount in Sen. Loren Legarda’s protest vs Noli de Castro that while cheating occurred, it was not massive enough to change the 2004 results. What is important now is to find out who instigated the cheating in the 2004 and 2007 elections; and if Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and others are found to be responsible for the cheating, by all means, prosecute every one of them without exception.

Election cheating must be stopped. Now is the best time to teach the cheats some lessons by sending them to jail. Show the cheats that winning an election is not the end of it all. There’s a jail term waiting for them too once their term of office is over. It will be P-Noy’s defining moment if he succeeds in prosecuting all the cheats, especially the likes of former Comelec official Lintang Bedol, whistle-blower or not.

—CESAR M. DE LOS REYES,

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