Stop the sham
By Noralyn Mustafa

IF I had any doubt that Fernando Poe Jr. and Loren Legarda won the elections of 2004, this has been completely dispelled by the conduct of the on-going congressional canvass.

Like most voters with minds undeceived by legal gobbledygook, what I see is the tyranny of the majority being so blatantly, unconscionably imposed to bamboozle us into believing that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo won.

The past elections became a fraud from the moment Ms Macapagal lied to the nation by announcing she would not run for election. But she could have, in some measure, redeemed herself by resigning before filing her certificate of candidacy. But despite Boots Anson-Roa and Amina Rasul pointing out to her the decent thing to do, she went on to use to the fullest the powers of the presidency to ensure her tenure in Malacañang for the next six years, and heaven forbid, even beyond.

The strategy is now all too clear; you don't need a law degree or a Ph.D. to see right through it.

The majority made the rules to fit the strategy. Representative Didagen Dilangalen and Senator Aquilino Pimentel could argue until they were blue in the face, the minority in the canvass committee and the lawyers of the opposition could point out all the erroneous entries in the certificates of canvass; but in the end, Francis Pangilinan and Raul Gonzalez, sitting like Lords of the Inquisition, made sure that all their efforts would be dealt the death sentence: "Noted."

My heart breaks for the thousands of teachers especially in the provinces who had to wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning of election day, man the precincts and go down on their knees to tally every vote as accurately as they could even by candlelight, defying hunger and fatigue, taking in threats, insults and other forms of humiliation just to ensure our votes would count in collective numbers to express our will; only to be frustrated in manufactured and fraudulent COCs prepared by the minions of Benjamin Abalos.

Ms Macapagal lost. And it is apparent that no one knows this better than Ms Macapagal herself. Otherwise, why are her allies in the canvassing committee so afraid to look into the statements of votes and election returns? With their characteristic use of the law to cover up something lawless, and their rules as a device for entrapment, they keep on repeating what must be an agreed-upon mantra: that charges of fraud should be brought to the presidential electoral tribunal, a.k.a. the graveyard of electoral protests, and that their "hands are tied by the rules" that don't allow them to "pass judgment on the veracity" of the COCs.

What hogwash. Since when did pointing out erroneous entries become "charges of fraud"? They themselves tied their own hands with their own apocryphal rules. They can untie them, if only to save themselves from the ignominy of acting in a farce.

Yes, for their own sakes and above all, for the sake of Ms Macapagal, they themselves in fact should insist that those election returns be opened and exposed to the entire nation to prove she indeed won the people's mandate. Anything less than that will not convince the electorate.

Otherwise, she will land in the footnotes of history as the Ph.D. who grabbed the presidency from one actor and stole it from another, both of them high school dropouts. That is a fate worse than losing the elections.

Clearly, the administration is in a state of panic. The rumors and preemptive statements spread against Poe and the Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino, the scenarios being floated about are all too familiar. But the most ludicrous, that one warning Poe about a supposed assassination attempt against him should not deceive us into laughing. We should take it very, very seriously because it is deadly. Remember Ninoy.

Because, look now -- martial law has descended upon us.

The images we see on TV -- the police and military complete with helmets and truncheons suppressing all forms of protests and even prayer meetings, the barbed wire and the water cannons -- are a morbid replay of the prelude to the darkest period in our history. Not the least are the threats of using "the full force of the law" against protesters, of charging their leaders with sedition, of the administration "doing everything in its power to prevent mob rule."

How we wish now that President Joseph Estrada had similarly quelled the mob that installed Ms Macapagal in power and cast their scourge upon the land.

Even the walk-out of the lawyers of the opposition on Friday (they should have done that long ago) gave us a startling sense of deja vu, and not the least, the members of the majority in the canvassing committee who are reprising the role of Marcos' "rubber stamp" assembly.

Should they, through all means foul, succeed in proclaiming her president by virtue of a fraudulent canvass, then for Ms Macapagal and Noli de Castro, it will be a victory worse than Pyrrhic. It will not only be an empty victory attained at so great a cost to us, it will be one totally devoid of credibility.

Not that she has much of that to begin with, but then Ms Macapagal will rule, in the words of Brother Eddie, as a bogus president.

To those of little faith, no, Pimentel has not changed. Not a thousand Namfrel volunteers swearing to the contrary will make him so. He is in fact being true to form, and if he were to run for office 10 times more, 10 times more will I vote for him.

Heed Pimentel. Stop this canvass. It is a sham, it is a farce, it is fraudulent. We ignore him at our own peril.

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