By Karla Angelica Pastores
Contributor

IT’S a step towards modernizing elections in the whole Philippines.

Yes, we’re talking about automation, as the Philippines made its debut into the modern world’s election process with the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao’s (ARMM) computerized elections last Monday.

The ARMM elections will serve as a prelude to what might possibly happen in 2010, the crucial time when we elect our next president. If this pilot test proves the notion that automation reduces the chances of dishonest acts, then preparations will then have to be made for 2010. On the other hand, if the elections will be judged as a failure, then more work should be done, at the cost of a “failed election” in ARMM. This, I believe, is not acceptable. But since we have yet to evaluate the polls, this is still an issue for future blogs.

Automated elections alone do not guarantee fraud-free polls. To the really corrupt people whose opportunities for dishonesty were lessened by the power of computerization, it presents a bigger obstacle to open new doors of cheating. Perhaps not surprisingly, last Monday’s polls were marked with irregularities noted by volunteers of different groups. Aside from apparent vote-buying, machine malfunction caused a delay in the voting in some parts of Maguindanao. The former is a sad reality that we need to correct; the latter is a new problem we have to be prepared for.

But I believe that automated elections will contribute more to the solution rather than to the problem. The problems of automation are easier to fix than the problems of some corrupt people with honest elections. Machines are more obedient to their manufacturers than other people are to their Creator, who is of course all for honesty. Filipinos are brilliant; we are not inept when it comes to technology, even though we may not be at the forefront of it.
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By Niña Terol
Contributor

IN his piece on Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight for Time, Richard Corliss writes, “Nolan has a… subversive agenda. He wants viewers to stick their hands down the rat hole of evil and see if they get bitten. With little humor to break the tension, The Dark Knight is beyond dark. It’s as black — and teeming and toxic — as the mind of The Joker.”

Having watched the film twice, first on Imax and next on a regular theater, I can’t help but agree that The Joker is a better reference for the film than its real protagonist, Batman. Spawned right from the center of Limbo, with all the qualities we find loathsome, pitiful, and yet terrifying, The Joker is a reminder of everything we don’t want human beings to become. Quoting Corliss again, the late Heath Ledger’s Joker “observes no rules, pursues no grand scheme; he’s the terrorist as improv artist.”

But I’d take it a few notches further and say that The Joker is the film’s “inverted social conscience,” the dreaded, deadly disease that makes society work together to find a cure. It is he who asks the hard questions; he who challenges the taken-for-granted assumptions; he that pushes humanity to see how low they would really sink — or how far they could really rise. He is the ultimate “necessary evil” that forces us to see just what we’re really made of. A composite of everything that is wrong, perverse, and twisted in our society, it is he who nonetheless shows us our true potentials for greatness.

It just goes to show that, in the movies — as well as in politics and the rest of real life — there’s a lot we can learn from the bad guys. We cannot simply turn our eyes away from them, or pretend they’re not there, or believe that they will simply go away. They will not– for they are here to stay. But instead of ignoring them because they’re such “bad examples,” we should study them, dissect them — even if we don’t understand them — and see how we can stop the rest of the world from joining their ranks.

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THEY say the youth (ages 13 to 35 years) is the hope of our nation, and it is believed that we comprise 40 percent of the population. Hence, it is imperative that we should take a stand on matters that concern our society.

Let me share my opinions, and maybe also share the sentiments of my fellow youths. Let me point out to both the administration and opposition, and even to the Filipino people at large, that the youth is not ignorant and passive about the issues confronting us every day (i.e., Charter change, political repression, even specific issues of the broad masses, such as genuine land reform and an increase in daily wages, etc.)

However, the administration and the opposition fail to see us and hear from us. Most of their platforms and agenda are outdated and very archaic to the ears of the electoral body.

They keep on promising a lot, but what do we get once they are in position? President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo failed to fulfill her responsibility after she was put in position by EDSA People Power II. Where is her promise to give priority to education and lift its quality now that the premier state university is facing a 300-percent tuition rate increase?

Shame on Arroyo for protecting the asses of Raul Gonzalez et al. after they pose terrorist threats inside campuses!

Let us also not forget the deaths of three student leaders from a progressive youth organization, the League of Filipino Students, in just one year.

The Arroyo administration continues to promote globalization and liberalization of our economy, while scheming to change the Constitution in a way that will risk all Philippine natural resources to foreign exploitation and ownership.

Hence, let it be known to the Filipino people that a vote for the TEAM Unity ticket of the administration is also a vote promoting all these anti-people acts of the government.

A word of warning to the opposition: Traditional politics is causing you to lose the people’s primarily trust.

If the oppositionists’ reason for running for election is their gripes against the present administration, then they are abusing democracy and destroying its sanctity.

Maybe that is why I always believe in the reforms of the genuine political and economic agenda of the progressive party-list groups (i.e., Kabataan party, Suara Bangsamoro, and others).

I believe that the Philippines will progress amidst all these political crises only if the tyrannical Arroyo government will be overtaken by the toiling masses and the Filipino people. Long live the people’s democratic mass movement!

– LEAN PORQUIA, University of the Philippines in the Visayas (via e-mail)