Poll Protests

Whoever said that the automation of the 2010 elections would eliminate protests? Still, although neither the COMELEC nor Smartmatic ever made that claim – never in my hearing anyway – I suppose that’s what a lot of people were kinda expecting.

The fact is, we did say that there would be a deluge of protests post-elections for the simple reason that the AES was a new system and many losing parties would be out to test if the system was broken or could be broken.

Of course, contrary to how some of these protest-filers have been portraying it, the presence of protests does not indicate that the elections were fraudulent. The proliferation of protests merely proves the basic proposition of democracy – that if you feel wronged, you have recourse to the law to set things right.

In fact, some of the protests don’t even have to do with the counting of the votes, electronic or otherwise.

(Imelda) Marcos’ disqualification is being sought by lawyers Mariano Nalupta and Ferdinand Ignacio who claim that she failed to meet the one-year residency requirement for candidates.

Particularly interesting, though, is this snippet of information:

In Makati City, Ma. Lourdes Locsin has filed a disqualification case against the winner of the first district seat, Rep. Monique Lagdameo.

Locsin is the wife of former Rep. Teodoro Locsin, who as chair of the House committee on suffrage concluded after an official inquiry that the automated polls were flawed and any cheating that took place probably occurred at the local level.

Well now.

In any case, it’s good for these cases to be filed if only to bring satisfaction to those who can prove that they should have won, and to those who still find it inexplicable that they should have lost at all.

I suppose this is where we pump our fists and shout “Long live Democracy!”

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