Level up the playing field

Our country has already exited from the manual voting and counting of votes since our maiden foray into the automated election system (AES) in May 2010. Unfortunately, the old dirty tricks in politics have also evolved with advanced technology.

- MARICHU A. VILLANUEVA

Worse, our country’s Omnibus Election Code of 1985 has failed to keep up with the evolution of our electoral process.

The Election Code is the so-called “bible” under which our Commission on Elections (Comelec) operates and abides by in the conduct of voting into office aspirants vying for national and local elections (NLE) in our country.

Comelec Chairman George Garcia has kept reassuring our Filipino voters that the seven-man poll body would exert every effort to curb, if not totally prevent, any form of fraud and cheating.

“We will proclaim those who deserve to be proclaimed in the elections,” the Comelec chairman declared.

A veteran election lawyer, Garcia demonstrated such conviction when he was first appointed as Comelec commissioner and handled the presidential and NLE in May 2022. His first acid test as Comelec chairman was the conduct of the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections (BSKE) in October 2022. It generally went well nationwide, since anyway it was still using the manual election system.

The mettle of Garcia’s leadership is going through tougher tests as the Comelec is facing what they call a “super election year.” The poll body will oversee the holding of three election exercises this year starting with the May 12, 2025 NLE. After which, the holding of the first elections for the members of the Parliament in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) reset to Oct. 13. And in December, the BSKE will be held.

The mandate of the Comelec is to strictly implement these election laws and adapt with the new “genres” of circumventing them, Comelec commissioner Ernesto Ferdinand Maceda Jr. underscored. But not as a law enforcement body, Maceda hastily clarified during our Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum last Wednesday.