Unless there’s a last-minute development from the Marcos camp, it’s all systems go for the proclamation of President-elect Rodrigo Duterte and Vice President-elect Leni Robredo at Congress today and it’s about time they did.
About 21 days since the elections were held, tensions rose over the fate of the vice presidency, said to be the spare tire position in the government, over complaints coming mostly from the camp of Sen. Bongbong Marcos who claimed that they were being cheated by the Liberal Party machinery.
Camarines Rep. Leni Robredo’s appeal to supporters to remain calm appeared to have mostly worked until her watchers walked out over the tabulation of votes during the canvassing done in Congress. No thanks to Smartmatic’s fumbles, her victory will forever be questioned by Marcos loyalists.
But the end winning margin of close to 300,000 is consistent with the unofficial count that showed Robredo leading Marcos by that narrow edge so claims of cheating will have to be verified through a tedious manual count of ballots which, based on this country’s bureaucracy, won’t happen soon.
Despite the controversy, Robredo’s win even if minor in the overall end of things means that the LP may still have a say on the government’s affairs.
The exodus of former allies into the PDP-Laban is expected but the LP can still work out a solid bloc of loyalists if Robredo and other notable leaders manage to stick together.
That is unless Duterte manages to woo Robredo into the PDP-Laban fold with a Cabinet post. Being exposed somewhat to the vagaries of Philippine politics, it remains to be seen if she will stay with LP or move to the other side.
What’s important now is that all major national and local positions have been accounted for and the results of the national and local elections have been finalized, with of course some election protests on the side, by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) within the election month of May.
Again we look back to the elections of yore, when the canvassing of votes in Congress would come midway or even late in June, about 15 or so days before the actual incoming president and vice president are sworn into office.
Thanks to the partial automation of the elections, the process had been speeded up though the results will always be questioned by losing candidates like outgoing suspended Cebu City mayor Michael Rama who simply cannot believe that while his allies won by huge margins, he lost by a sizable difference to his erstwhile mentor and incoming Mayor Tomas Osmeña.
Thus unless the incoming president decides to revert the elections back to manual count, a prospect that should be opposed by the Filipino people, Comelec has nowhere to go but up and forward. They should continually work to improve, if not perfect, the voting process and hire the best service provider for the job
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