The Presidential Electoral Tribunal has agreed to recount the votes for 2016 vice presidential elections. Finally, we thought, the matter could be addressed and set straight.
Soon after the recount started, however, four of the 40 head revisors resigned, prompting concerns on the pace of the proceedings.
The reasons for the resignations were unknown, but the camps of both Vice President Leni Robredo and her challenger, former Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. both said this will cause further delays.
It is tempting to speculate on why exactly the revisors decided to quit at this crucial stage. Could they have faced undue pressure or interference? Did they see the process as futile?
What is certain is that this once more shows an unfortunate feature of Philippine elections that tends to undermine a more fundamental mark of democracy.
An electoral protest is often seen as a battle among those who won and those who think they won. It is often forgotten that the question should be on how the votes were counted and tallied—the “who” should be irrelevant.
Thus, a decision to recount votes in a particular race should be seen as an opportunity to review and improve on the process so that next time around, time and resources would be conserved.
Winning candidates could then focus on doing the job they were elected to do.
Unfortunately, politics continues to rear its ugly head.
We can only watch how this latest development will play out and how it will affect the discharge of duties —not that there is a lot—of the vice president. In the meantime, election officials should really be arming themselves on how to do their jobs, not for or against any one candidate, but for the higher end of making sure votes are counted and tallied properly.
