Election Analysis

Theres The Rub
After the fall

By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer

First Posted 05:13:00 05/27/2010
Filed Under: Eleksyon 2010, Elections, Benigno Aquino III, Inquirer Politics

Am I worried that Noynoy Aquino will not be proclaimed at the end of next month and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will continue to be a holdover president?

Not at all. The time when Arroyo could have mounted a “no-proc” is gone and past. Noynoy will be president by the end of next month.

At the very least that is so because he is the near-universally perceived winner of the presidential elections.
I say near-universally because only Joseph “Erap” Estrada is now challenging it, while most of the people who voted for him have given it up. What makes the electoral protests a little silly is the basic contention of the losers that the elections were “generally clean” except in their cases.

That’s what the Erap camp is saying. Only Noynoy cheated. Or worse, as Erap’s supporters have openly charged, only Noynoy has benefited from Arroyo’s cheating. The elections were perfectly OK when it came to Erap’s wife and two sons who won, and won big, but not so in his case.

And that’s what the Roxas camp is suggesting. Only Jojo Binay cheated, his numbers being unbelievable. Or worse, as his supporters have darkly hinted, only Binay has benefited from whoever cheated. The
elections were perfectly OK when it came to Roxas’ running mate who won, and won big, but not so in his case.

This is where I say again I am thankful for the surveys, a thing I never thought I’d find myself saying. Without the surveys, the results of the elections would now be in very serious dispute. Easy to say the
results are unbelievable and let loose more koalas into the Philippine Outback. The Comelec is not exactly held in the highest esteem by the public. Until it held an election that hewed pretty nearly to the
findings of the more reputable survey-takers. That is not to say I have become a convert of surveys; that is merely to give credit where credit is due.

I myself suspect the reason it happened was that it wasn’t the public who wasn’t prepared for automation, it was the commissioners. Most of them are past masters in the tricks that happen in canvassing,
the kind where 100 gets to be 100,000, but few, if any, of them are even neophytes in the tricks that happen in computing. Some of them probably still use manual typewriters, the kind found in police stations, LTO branches, and canvassing offices. As a rule, automation can’t be hacked: You cannot tamper with it from the outside, you can tamper with it only from the inside. How could the Garcis educate the public in the use of the machines when they couldn’t educate themselves with it enough to mis-educate the public about the results?

The clincher in the elections being credible was that all the Queen’s men lost. Or the ones that had lent their faces to Arroyo’s regime, chief of them Prospero Nograles, Raul Gonzalez and Mike Defensor. They lost, and lost big. Noynoy doesn’t get to be proclaimed on June 30 and you will have an Edsa situation. It’s not just that a reasonably beloved leader would be prevented from becoming leader, it’s that an unreasonably unloved leader would continue to be so.

Which brings me to: At the very most there’s the psychology of it.

You don’t need Tolkien’s imagination to see the sea-change that has been wrought on the face of this country by the elections. All you need is to open your eyes. I did warn about it repeatedly in past months:
After Arroyo falls, she will look like the bust of Marcos in Agoo, home to rain, crows and forgetfulness. Once a face that shocked and awed the people of this country, it has become one that draws only spite and
spit. It looks like a face in the throes of pain and anguish, a reminder that the exalted shall be humbled, so like Ozymandias proclaiming, “Look upon me, ye mighty, and despair.” Such is the fate of tyrants.

You don’t need to go far to see it. Facebook has a “Dear Gloria” site that has become a big hit, performing the not inconsiderable service of giving people therapy by allowing them to release pent-up emotions.
Brave new world, we never had that in 1986. It’s a mechanism for instant national catharsis. Needless to say, most of the letters that appear there are not fit to print—in newspapers at least, the Web is a little freer (for good and bad). It’s enough to have bestirred the usual suspects in Malacañang, Gary Olivar and company, to call for sobriety, if not call the writers names (“It’s their right to be as foul and stupid as they want”), to which the writers have responded gleefully with more of the same.

No, I’m not worried at all that Noynoy will not be proclaimed and Arroyo will continue to be holdover president. In fact I’m not worried at all that Arroyo will cause any trouble in Congress, such as by rallying her troops as speaker of the House and posing a threat to the new government. The moment she steps out of Malacañang by the end of next month, she will be more alone than Marcos. At least Marcos had a loyal following, however small, based on those persons’ belief in his ability and/or generosity. Arroyo has none.

Not even Hermogenes Esperon and Eduardo Ermita will be there, and in any case they too have already been judged harshly by the voters, pending the judgment of history. She will be orphaned in ways that redefine orphanhood just as she was once parented in ways that redefined parenting. The fall comes hard on the heels of pride.

More than the legal, more than the political, it is the psychological that will make Noynoy Aquino president of this country by the end of next month, a full month to the day his mother died. Whether he has a vice president
or not, whether Jojo Binay will stand by his side or not. That is so because the people will want it so, that is so because the people will make it so. Heaven has no beauty than a nation reborn.

Hell has no fury than hope scorned.