Will the dead vote too?

Nobody loses an election in the Philippines. The sour grapes always claim to be victims of poll cheating, and promptly file election protests. Such is the reality of Philippine politics that makes lawyering in election cases such a profitable trade.

Losing an election protest is not a dead-end too. A scoundrel thumbed down by the electorate can always subject a winning mayor or governor to a recall election – that democratically disruptive process that first reared its head in Athens during the time of Plato, if we're not mistaken.

Sure, the recall election process is enshrined in the laws of the Philippines and of many other countries like the United States (as early as the 1630s)  and Canada and in six of the 26 cantons or member-states of Switzerland. But while it’s legal, it has often been misused to subvert democracy to boot out a duly elected official for no reason at all except to give an election loser a chance to grab power.

In fact, a recall election is a redundancy because if there are really grounds to remove a public official, why not just file against him criminal cases like for plunder or graft and corruption that, in the Philippines, would result to his   being suspended by the Ombudsman pending a guilty or innocent verdict by a court like the Sandiganbayan.

Take the case of the railroaded recall petition against Puerto Princesa Mayor Lucilo Bayron.  It is a classic case of everything that is wrong with recall elections. The talk coming out of the Comelec is that a top poll official, despite calling in sick, valiantly came into the Comelec office for a few minutes if only to approve and  set the date of the recall election in Puerto Princesa for May 8.

What was that? Acting above or beyond the call of duty or for the millions and millions of reasons reportedly coming out of the camp of a political clan in Puerto Princesa? That clan has a vaunted war chest to fund the recall petition against Bayron after decades of plunder by its patriarch  left the city coffers empty and the city with P1.5 billion in bank loans and P633 million in cash deficit.

Now, whether in the US or the Philippines, a recall petition must have a cause celebré or a grave backing complaint against the subject of the recall. In the case of Bayron, there’s no basis whatsoever that the conscripted complainants could cite. This primordial requirement was not met, yet the Comelec did not dismiss the petition outright. Only in the Philippines, indeed.

The incontrovertible fact is that Bayron is so popular among his constituents in  Puerto Princesa. He has been whittling down the debts left behind by the Hagedorns, and he has brought down criminality by 40 percent in 2014 compared to 2013. The DILG has even taken notice   of Bayron’s reforms, giving him its Seal  of Good Governance and Financial Housekeeping  for 2014.

Just as Bayron won the election in 2013 fair and square, there’s no doubt he would also win this recall election that the Comelec rammed down the collective throats of Puerto Princesans.  However, the danger lies in that the dead people who, along with double registrants, signed the bogus recall petition against Bayron may get resurrected  or paid anew,  this time to vote against Bayron.

With the Comelec showing partiality against Bayron, it is now up to the people of Puerto Princesa to ensure that the sanctity of the votes they cast in 2013 is not trampled upon by this baseless recall election propped by a sham and railroaded recall petition. -end-