Still waiting

Ever since he filed his electoral protest with the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) in July 2007 or four years ago, lawyer Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III has always believed he won the last Senate spot in the 2007 senatorial election. Sen. Miguel Zubiri, against whom Pimentel filed the protest, resigned his Senate seat last Wednesday, as a matter of honor and integrity.

In subsequent interviews, Zubiri would explain his resignation further, saying this was the honorable thing to do even though he was not party to the electoral fraud from which, new testimonial evidence – from at least two alleged principals in the cheating – indicates, he appears to have benefited.

Looking forward to his being officially proclaimed by the Commission on Elections, Pimentel is now talking about his upcoming oath-taking in Davao, but the truth is he won’t be taking any oaths just yet. There would be no Comelec proclamation until the SET issues a ruling in his favor.

Zubiri’s resignation, regardless of whether it was a graceful act of statesmanship or was simply a graceful way out of a losing case, does help the SET to do its job.

Pimentel, whom SET had reportedly found to have gotten over 200,000 votes more than Zubiri, might have already been proclaimed the winner if not for a counter-protest by Zubiri. To the credit of Zubiri, though, aside from resigning, he also withdrew his counter-protest. “We wanted to expedite everything,” Zubiri’s lawyer Erwin Garcia said. “I want to make it clear to the Filipino nation that had Zubiri not resigned, or not withdrawn the counter-protest, the process would take one more year,” until January 2013, he added.

SET secretary Irene Guevarra admitted as much when she said had Zubiri not resigned, the SET would take six more months to look at ballots and get more evidence. “This expedited the process,” she explained, adding that their revising of the ballots indicated that Pimentel was leading by more than 200,000 votes. “We were relieved in the sense that we didn’t have to continue the tedious process of collection and revision of ballots. Now we can render a decision on the main protest earlier than expected.”

“The indications are that the SET will rule in favor of Koko Pimentel… He will be proclaimed senator,” Guevarra said. This has been echoed by Sen. Edgardo Angara, a member of the SET: “Since there would no longer be any counterprotest, the protest of Mr. Pimentel would be upheld. After this resolution, it will go to the Commission on Elections, which will proclaim Mr. Pimentel as the winner.”

But when will that be? Until then, Pimentel waits. And at this point he has lost four out of the six years that make up a senator’s term.

This is because electoral tribunals, the SET and House of Representatives Electoral Tribunals (HRET), in particular, do not have a good history when it comes to settling electoral disputes; they are not noted for speedy, timely and just resolution of cases; they are known more for deciding a case when the contested term is just about to end, as happened to Pasig Rep. Noel Cariño who got to sit on the last day of the third regular session of the 12th Congress, after three years of waiting for HRET to decide on his protest case against his rival Henry Lanot who served the former’s entire term.

There are many reasons for the electoral tribunals’ “too late” resolutions; but, really, all it takes to tie up an election protest is a lawyer who is armed with an arsenal of legal delaying tactics, and the “real losers” get to hold on their seats; and most of them are not as open as Zubiri to relinquishing their positions as quickly and as definitively.

Pimentel’s protest, near as it may be to closure, nevertheless further underscores the need for reforms that will enable electoral tribunals to speed up its review process because only by their timely decisions can they do justice to both candidates and voters. The next elections are already scheduled for May 13, 2013. The clock is ticking.