http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20100119-248287/Interesting-times
MANILA, Philippines--Social Weather Stations had a very interesting survey last week. If the elections this May failed, the citizens would very likely take to the streets and mount another People Power.
The proposition (quite awkwardly put) specifically was: “If the 2010 elections fail for any reason, e.g., malfunctioning of the counting machines, then People Power will probably happen already.” Some 49 percent agreed with it as against 22 percent who did not. Yet another proposition was: “The machines that will be used to count the votes in the 2010 election can easily be sabotaged in order to fake the election results.” The response was more varied. The majority in Metro Manila (56 percent) and Luzon (55 percent) said yes. The gap was closer in the Visayas, 37 percent saying yes and 27 percent saying no. It was the reverse in Mindanao where 41 percent thought the machines were tamper-proof against 27 who thought they were not.
Most respondents trusted the Comelec to safeguard the vote.
The survey firms up the belief that this time around the public won’t stand for massive cheating in the elections. I’ve heard that question debated many times these past few months, the cynical response being that since Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has managed quite well over the years nipping an Edsa III in the bud, she will succeed—as presiding authority in the event of a failure of elections—in nipping yet another Edsa even if it’s no longer in the bud. That overlooks the sea change that has swept across the land since Cory Aquino was laid to rest in August last year, one that has led on one hand to GMA no longer being able to commit atrocity with impunity and on the other to Noynoy Aquino leaping to the head of the presidential pack before he even signified his intention to run. I’ve always said it takes two things to produce an Edsa: revulsion over an undesirable thing and embrace of a desirable one. Without both elements, no Edsa. Those two elements are there today. The elections fail, we’re bound to have an Edsa III.
But the all-important question is: How will the public see that the elections have failed?
That is not an easy question to answer. The “malfunctioning of the machines” should be obvious only if the machines conk out right in front of the voters. Such as for example, if they stopped working completely, if they refuse to swallow the ballots and/or spit them out afterward, if they grind to a slowness that effectively disenfranchises waiting voters. Or, to extend the meaning of “malfunction,” if they do not arrive on time, if they are in short supply, if the teachers/poll supervisors are not properly trained in their use.
The fact that the majority in Luzon and the Visayas believe that the machines could be sabotaged but trust the Comelec to safeguard the votes suggests that they believe the machines could be sabotaged only from outside, or by hacking. Even if that’s just the case, how can you see, much less prove, hacking?
But that’s nothing, for here’s the real rub: What if the machines arrive on time and in the right quantities, work like a dream, and finish their work in record time, but produce a result violently opposed to the public’s expectation? What if, as the IT community has been warning all this time, the machines are hacked not from the outside but from the inside, the very institution the public trusts to safeguard the elections proving, as before, to be a bantay-salakay or wolf in sheep’s clothing? What if, as suggested by the Comelec’s very thrust of making the whole automation process opaque rather than transparent, the machines do what they are supposed to do, efficiently, systematically, inexorably, which is to count votes wrongly?
Will that be seen? And will we have an Edsa thereby?
That is really asking: If Noynoy Aquino is cheated, will that be seen? And will we have an Edsa thereby?
I say that because that is the unstated assumption in the SWS survey. The survey might as well have asked those questions directly. It’s not merely that Noynoy is the one and only candidate associated with People Power, it’s also that he is the one and only candidate likely to spark an Edsa from the perception of being cheated. There is no other. Not Manny Villar, not Gibo Teodoro, not Dick Gordon. That was one of the reasons I cited when I suggested that Noynoy run for president. He carries with him that clout.
So, if he is cheated, will it be seen, and will it lead to an Edsa III?
I take my cue, and comfort, from what happened in Edsa II. What raised that event like Lazarus from the grave was really nothing as visible as the breaking down of machines, including the judicial one, or as palpable as the hacking of machines from the outside producing results not unlike unwanted popups. It was the simple refusal of the Senate-cum-impeachment-court, an institution like the Comelec the public trusted to safeguard justice, to open the “second envelope” containing quite possibly incriminating evidence against Erap. Given the context of a profound disillusionment with Erap and a widespread clamor for change, that took on the aspect of a dirty finger thrust in the public’s face. Producing the results it did.
Some things go past the reckoning of surveys. There are such things as instinct, not least for self-preservation, and a sense that something is wrong, not least from a vigilant public. The people are not dumb, or insensate, and have shown wisdom and sensitivity beyond peer when least expected. The two Edsas, the first one sparked as well by cheating in the snap elections (that was really the source of it, the mutiny merely lit the fuse) are proof of it.
I believe it. If cheating happens again, Edsa will happen again.
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