No closer to the truth
The law penalizing a new crime called electoral sabotage with life imprisonment may finally get its test case, and the felon may turn out to be… not Maguindanao election supervisor Lintang Bedol, but a journalist or two who dared to cast aspersions on the integrity of the Commission on Elections.Comelec officials, to no one’s surprise, allowed Bedol yesterday to post bail after ordering him imprisoned for six months for indirect contempt of the poll body. If the Comelec keeps this up, detention centers could be filled to overflowing with Filipinos who hold the poll body in contempt. Bedol, after spending a night at the Comelec main office instead of in a hotel at taxpayers’ expense, coughed up the required bail of P15,000 but was stranded by floods in Manila. He is certain to return to Maguindanao, where the credibility of the vote in the May elections remains under a cloud of doubt.
Bedol has often been described as the Virgilio Garcillano of the recent midterm elections, and the comparison is not far off the mark. Both men have been implicated in electoral fraud in Mindanao, and both have refused to come clean on the scandals. Both have regarded the accusations with disdain, acting as if they are sure the truth will never be known. Garcillano was cocky enough to campaign for Congress in Bukidnon last May using the nickname “Garci” after initially denying that he was the man with that name in wiretapped phone conversations. Three years after the presidential election where Garcillano is suspected to have rigged the vote in favor of the incumbent, the nation is no closer to the truth.
Now the allegations of poll fraud are focused on Maguindanao. Election returns from the province disappeared, slowing down the national canvassing. Comelec officials later declared that the missing returns had been found. To this day the authenticity of the returns that were “found” has not been established beyond doubt. The mess lies squarely on the shoulders of the Comelec official in charge of the vote in Maguindanao. That happens to be Bedol, but he’s not the one who will get a life term for electoral sabotage. He gets six months and a fine of P1,000. Journalists who criticized the Comelec are the ones who will be locked up for life.
