Is the Comelec truly ready?

The Commission on Elections confidently announced Wednesday that it was "All systems go" for the May 14 election. It also emphasized that everything is ready for the voting to start. Does this mean that it has already solved all the pending problems like the case of the Joselito Cayetano candidacy? It may have declared the new "Peter" a nuisance candidate, but the fellow has filed a petition for reconsideration and that has not been acted on yet.

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And what about the petitions for the disqualification of some partylist groups? Has that been settled already? And then there are the complaints that Speaker - and candidate for re-election as congressman - Joe de Venecia has been giving away insurance policies to prospective voters. Has the Comelec touched that already? Will it dare? And there is the most touchy problem of all - the dangle by Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez of a P10,000 bonus to all barangay captains of Iloilo who could deliver a 12-0 win for the senatorial candidates of the administration, a.k.a. Team Unity.

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Yesterday Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos was reported to have ordered a probe into the Gonzalez affair. This was after public opinion began to clamor for it, considering the specific provisions of the Free Election Act that says the even a mere "offer" that could influence someone else's vote could already be considered a violation. Abalos has been declared bravely that they may summon Secretary Gonzalez on the matter. Will he come? Can they threaten him? He's used to being the one doing that, you know.

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But even if the Comelec hustles to act on all these cases, it is not likely that it can finish them all within a week. And if they do, the respondents could still file appeals, that should delay matters further. So it is puzzling that the agency could be so confident in saying that it's all systems go for them. Will this be a case of "Ready or not, here we come"? So don't be surprised if those cases continue to pend up to election day. Afterwards the Commission will be so inundated with protests and complaints that all the rest will be shelved and forgotten already.

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The management of the NBC, the well-known TV station to which South Korean "shooter" Cho Seung-Hui had mailed the video of his intentions, is now trying to defend the company's act of showing it to the public. This means that there have been complaints from some quarters about the propriety or the ethics of doing so. If the criticism came from other media outfits, NBC could borrow Manny Pacquiao's famous retort "Inggit lang sila (They're only envious)".

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What media entity would inhibit itself from disseminating such an obvious scoop? If NBC had been a penny-ante company before it showed the video tape, it would have sprung up in ratings and income with only one showing. I understand it even had the decency to edit the tape, that is, it withheld some portions that were really offensive. I personally don't think NBC violated anything. The act of Cho Seung-Hui could not be understood by anyone, and the videotapes certainly helped to fathom what could have led him to do what he did. I'm sure even psychiatrists will be interested to study those records as an aid to helping other similarly disturbed people. Anyway, the killer was no longer a minor, he was already 24, and a full-grown adult.

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Meanwhile, the International Press Institute has tagged 2006 as "the most savage year" for journalists. The IPI records show that 100 journalists were killed that year. The most deadly place, it also said, was Iraq. And guess which country got the second place? One guess? None other than our very own "Land of the Morning …" It now looks as if every international rights group has pronounced our country as veritable killing fields for journalists. And don't forget, we have another "distinction" as the most corrupt in Asia.

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At first reports said that Gringo Honasan had been granted bail so he could join the senatorial bets of Team Unity. That didn't happen and then it was rumored that he would be taken in by the Grand Opposition, but the group said it would not. Then the elusive coup plotter also declared that he didn't want to join them, in effect, saying "If you don't like me, I don't like you also". So now he's going solo.*

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