flux

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity. - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, English novelist (1812-1870)

"A time of flux," was how one lawyer friend described the pattern of events unfolding in the country.

"A paradigm-shift," described another.

And I thought I was the only one who was feeling the cool wave of change washing over our institutions and collective psyche.

At the center of the political vortex is an ambitious plan to overhaul a creaky and antiquated election system by replacing humans with machines in counting votes and transmitting results to a central computer.

Admittedly, this would probably not solve the following old-school ways of cheating in elections:

• registration of non-qualified voters
• disenfranchisement of qualified voters
• simple vote-buying
  
• waylaying of voters through fraud, stealth, or intimidation
• ballots filled up by only one person or group of persons
• voting by persons other than by registered voters.

However, the most cost-efficient ways of cheating are minimized or eliminated by poll computerization. Among the problems that poll automation would minimize or eliminate are:

• vote-buying with chain-balloting or identification marks
  
• stuffing of ballot boxes with fake ballots
• misreading of ballots
• ballot/ ballot box snatching, destruction or substitution when a candidate is losing in a precinct
• falsification or tampering of election returns
• falsification of statements of votes or certificates of canvass in the municipal or city board of canvassers (adding/ subtracting thousands or even hundreds of thousands of votes)
  
• falsification of statements of votes or certificates of canvass in the provincial board of canvassers (up to a million votes changed per province).

We are coming closer to the democratic ideal of one person-one vote, away from the current one-candidate-thousands of votes. And some feudal lords are not happy with this development at all.

Already, some of those who had reaped benefits from the old school and whose baronies are threatened by the new school have sought to sow chaos and confusion in Cotabato and other places in the South. It's the classic conflict between regional affiliations and national interests, the rule of lords and the rule of law.

These are the interests that we and our next batch of leaders must balance in the months leading to May 10, 2010. What an exciting time.

Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo - Various