That’s entertainment SILVER LINING Dean Ernest Maceda 06/04/2010

That’s entertainment

SILVER LINING Dean Ernest Maceda 06/04/2010 For sheer entertainment value, nothing beats the whines and gripes of losing candidates in popular elections. Just as inmates will tell you that there are no guilty men in prison, candidates will swear that there are no honest victories in an election. As an electorate, we are not so naïve as to believe that 100 percent clean elections can be attainable — not in this lifetime. We have lived and bled through too many a fraudulent scheme to trust in the capacity of government to be straight with so much at stake. Are there eyes remaining unjaundiced after Gloria said hello to Garci? But though innocence be frayed, the capacity to laugh so endemic in the Filipino remains enduring. Good for us for there is much to laugh about. Switch on the news or tune in to ANC. Top of the top 10 list would have to be the “hail mary” arguments of Sen. Mar Roxas’ canvassing team. By their own computations (arrived at after tallying the entries in the different certificates of canvass from the 278 provinces and highly urbanized and independent cities, including overseas and absentee votes), the total number of null votes reach a staggering 2,600,000, more or less, for the position of vice president. To this, they would add the approximately 400,000 votes not counted when the threshold percentage was lowered (as low as 85 percent, was it?) by the Comelec for the proclamation of local candidates. To begin with, the 400,000 or so votes supposedly not counted were, in fact counted, when the final, complete transmission was done from city or municipal consolidating and canvassing servers (CCS) to the Comelec servers. The advance proclamations of local winners and the partial results printed out for the purpose of appeasing the impatient winners were just that, partial printouts. These were not the same figures actually transmitted when the counts were completed. Hence, the 400,000 are phantom votes. Nice try, children..... MORE     Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100604com6.html

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