Malayang Halalan
Free elections establish the foundation for good governance and the grounds for a people-led political system that lives up to its original promise. But while Filipinos have for a long time now been casting votes for their chosen leaders, with national elections regularly held since September 15, 1935, the electoral process has had a problematic track record to say the least.
From the very first national elections, when Manuel Luis Quezon won against revolutionary President Emilio Aguinaldo, our elections have been mired in valid accusations of fraud, violence, inefficiency and incompetence, with Quezon’s victory coming on the heels of accusations that Aguinaldo took bribes from the Spaniards during his Hong Kong exile.
Since then, elections in the Philippines have never been free of controversy. Indeed, one of the country’s proudest moments was in the toppling of a dictatorship after the failure of the elections to effect meaningful change. And while that moment stands as a milestone beyond all others in the country’s post-war political history, the revolution of 1986 also underscores the holes in our democratic processes, with allegations of widespread cheating ringing loudly throughout the country in every election since.
Sen. Richard Gordon, considered by many to be the father of election modernization in the Philippines and author of Republic Act (RA) 9369 once posted in his blog:
After 111 years of independence from colonial rule, we have yet to free our nation from the shackles of electoral fraud and cheating. We have yet to see honest, clean, speedy, and credible elections. (www.richardgordon.blogspot.com)
Yes, the Philippines is the oldest democracy in Asia—a distinction that countless of politicians have milked for all that it is worth—but our democratic institutions remain shaky, with the country’s long history of corruption as the main culprit.
A metastasized culture of graft and corruption has created to self-destructive political culture and an inept system of governance that has continues to fail our countrymen in innumerable aspects, as seen in the reports of such international studies like the World Bank measures of governance, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, and Amnesty International’s reports of heightened abuses against human rights. This culture is also reflected in the disturbing trend chronicled by the International Federation of Journalists regarding freedom of the press and the unabated killing of journalists.
