The gall!

FRONTLINE

Ninez Cacho-Olivares

05/17/2007

Here’s more questionable behavior tending to prove that the Abalos-led Comelec takes its orders from Malacañang.

With the electronic media coming up with computer school quick counts showing an impressive opposition victory in the Senate race, Malacañang and its Team Unity (TU) camp quickly wanted these counts stopped, claiming that these quick counts are meant to condition the public’s mind of an opposition victory and intimating that the counts are skewed as these figures come only from select areas in the country — and that the Mindanano and Cebu votes are not being tallied in these quick counts.

Malacañang made it clear that it wanted the quick counts by the media stopped.

Immediately, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) ordered media to stop their quick counts, saying these are not authorized and that there is a danger of trending.

So why should the Comelec, supposedly an independent constitutional body, that even has a chairman and his commissioners claiming the recent polls conducted were peaceful, orderly and clean and who even congratulated themselves for proving the oppositon’s allegations of massive cheating false, be so afraid of a media quick count then claim that this is not authorized by the Comelec?

If, as Abalos claims, the polls conducted by his agency were clean and orderly, and that no cheating has occurred, or will occur in the counting, why then does he want these quick counts stopped?

Quick counts are, in fact, a clear deterrent to massive cheating operations done through the canvassing, and well does the Comelec know it.

“The stations should not do it because it (the count) confuses our people. It shows trending and we do not allow trending because they might be reporting from places favorable to their candidates of choice,” he said, adding only Namfrel is accredited by the poll body to do a quick count. Lame excuse, that.

Abalos claimed that his agreement with the media is that they will report what they see, and come up with exit polls. “This (quick count) is not under the exit polls anymore. They are not supposed to consolidate votes…They are not supposed to report unofficial counts,” Abalos stressed.

He also pointed out that the sources of the figures on the TV quick count being released are unidentified, then threatened the media with a contempt citation.

Sandali lang, Mr. Abalos. The media are not under Comelec control and do not have to even ask any permission from the poll body to do a quick count.

Moreover, stopping the media from airing anything they please constitutes prior restraint — especially as the Comelec is a government agency.

Just what power and control do Abalos and his agency believe they have over the media in issuing this directive that is being done by the Comelec upon the order of Gloria to have the quick count stopped?

One can understand the logic being a watchdog seeking accreditation from the Comelec to do an unofficial quick count, as they want to have in their possession the official copy of the election returns (ERs) on which they base their figures to do a parallel count.

But the media? Why should they even seek the permission of the Comelec to do a quick count or even seek accreditation from the Comelec, when there is nothing, by way of official reports, that they need from Comelec?

It is the computer school people who have been assigned in various precincts to tally the votes. The media are certainly free to do what they want by getting the vote count, in the precinct level. Still, the electronic media are hardly known to fight for their rights and freedom. They generally toe the Malacañang line.

This same tack was also taken by the Comelec in 2004, especially when the electronic media were announcing the results of the quick count that showed Fernando Poe Jr., the opposition standard-bearer, winning the race. Comelec ordered an immediate stop to the TV quick count. And TV complied.

Abalos also ordered the stoppage of a quick count being conducted by the opposition camp when the opposition, having its own copy of the ERs, was doing a tally of its votes and winning, which helped in exposing Joe Concepcion’s Namfrel skewing the vote in favor of Gloria. Namfrel had to correct its figures and apologized for the “error.”

Media were told to stop publicizing the opposition count, because the opposition bets were clearly winning, and this would be disastrous to the Gloria camp’s cheating machine.

The same is being done today by the Abalos Comelec. There’s a lot of cheating to be done, to get the TU bets into the “Magic 12” circle. And moves have to be made to ensure that the cheating won’t be detected.

And they have the gall to claim that the polls are clean?

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