The unbelievable lead
of Macapagal-Arroyo

IT'S more than a week after the May 10 election and we still don't know who has really won the presidential race. Was it Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo or Fernando Poe Jr.? The answer will depend on which side of the ideological fence you sit.

Last week I wrote that Poe's protest over a supposedly rigged election was too early. Now I'm beginning to see that Poe may have a point. Reports of Macapagal-Arroyo winning all the votes for president in certain precincts, while Poe, Senator Panfilo Lacson, Raul Roco, and Eddie Villanueva received not a single vote in those same precincts, point to obvious vote-rigging by the Macapagal-Arroyo administration. It is a statistical improbability that such a thing can happen so often.

Cries of vote-shaving and vote-padding have been the loudest coming from Mindanao, where the precarious law-and-order situation is being used as a convenient cover for vote manipulation. The chairperson of the National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) in Lanao del Sur province himself announced on Tuesday that Poe had lost votes in that area due to vote-shaving.

Re-electionist candidate Senator Aquilino Pimentel of Poe's Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino (KNP) has also cried foul, claiming that he has been the victim of vote-shaving in several precincts across the country. Namfrel is looking into his claims. Whether or not Pimentel ever gets his votes back is unclear, but he is currently No. 3 in the Namfrel quick count of the senatorial returns.

Opposition media outlets, led by ABC-5 television network and the Daily Tribune newspaper, have been carrying the alternative quick count being done by the People's Tally and Action Center (PTAC), which shows Poe leading the race. On Wednesday, they were both ordered by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to stop carrying that quick count, as Namfrel is the only quick count authorized by Comelec. I think this is a mistake on Comelec's part. What happened to freedom of speech and information? I think the Philippine electorate should have access to as much information on the election returns as possible, even if it is different from Comelec's or Namfrel's.

The truth is that both Comelec and Namfrel have been shown to be biased in favor of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration, so why should the opposition believe their counts? Guillermo Luz, the secretary general of Namfrel, and executive director of the Makati Business Club, is an open Macapagal-Arroyo supporter, and can be seen frequently on television sneering at Poe and his supporters. Is that impartial and unbiased? Hardly!

The opposition is claiming that the election was being projected as having been won by Macapagal-Arroyo even before the polling centers closed at 3 p.m. on May 10. According to Senator Pimentel, the exit poll by the research group Social Weather Stations (SWS) on May 10, which predicted a win by Macapagal-Arroyo, was in fact a sloppily done job to favor the president. He claims that pollsters actually interviewed voters in their homes, knowing both their names and addresses, instead of at the actual polling centers themselves. This, Pimentel argues, means that those polled could have been too afraid to reveal whom they really voted for (if they had voted for Poe or Lacson), either out of shame or fear of retribution if they were government workers.

Pimentel also pointed out that unlike the SWS prediction, Macapagal-Arroyo did not win in Metro Manila, as election returns have shown Poe winning in all but one of the 13 cities and municipalities of Metro Manila.

It is truly the act of a desperate administration to have acting Justice Secretary Merceditas Gutierrez issue a warning on Tuesday to the media against publishing or broadcasting "false news," and saying that those who did would be prosecuted by the government. What happened to freedom of the press? Don't tell me that the opposition is abusing its freedom to spread chaos and confusion in the country, as I don't believe it for a second.

Remember the outcry of indignation when then-president Joseph Estrada tried to torpedo the Philippine Daily Inquirer by calling for an advertising boycott of that paper? Now that those who led that outcry are in power they want to muzzle criticism. What irony!

It is an unfortunate truth that die-hard Macapagal-Arroyo supporters want to ensure her victory by whatever means necessary. A well-educated Filipino voter told me this week that he didn't care if the Macapagal-Arroyo administration cheated to ensure victory. "Let them cheat for Macapagal-Arroyo. We can't allow an ignoramus such as Poe to win the election," he said.

What nonsense! If Poe won the vote he should be allowed to assume the presidency. The country won't self-destruct just because Poe doesn't have a PhD in economics. There is such a thing as an entrenched bureaucracy that continues functioning whether or not there is a good president at the helm.

The truth is that the elite of the Philippines -- and that includes Macapagal-Arroyo supporters -- believe that only they know what's best for the whole country. They have become hardened ideologues unable to see any good in the opposition. I think this is the unfortunate result of the 20 years of Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship and ensuing EDSA People Power revolution that overthrew him. Now we have the dictatorship of the so-called good governance activists. But a dictatorship is still a dictatorship in my book no matter how you dress it up. If so many Filipinos are willing to cheat to keep Macapagal-Arroyo in power, why even have the pretence of democracy?

Comments or questions? E-mail me at rasheed@arabnews.com.