PARALLEL COUNT: WHYS AND WHEREFORES

By Philip M. Lustre Jr.

(N.B. In 1992, my colleagues in the journalistic community installed me as media director of the Media-Citizens’ Quick Count (MCQC), which, under the election laws at that time, was tasked to conduct a parallel count of the results of the 1992 presidential elections. As media director, my task was to inform the public re details of the MCQC parallel count. But my job did not limit me to the dissemination of institutional information for public consumption. It had exposed me too to the sad realities of Philippine politics. Please read my recollections of my MCQC experience and their relevance to the present situation.)

NO sane man trusts the official vote count of the watchdog Commission on Elections (Comelec). It is always been subject to numerous questions. Lest we forget our electoral mindset is that Filipino politicians generally don’t lose; they just get cheated.

It was on the basis of this premise that Christian Monsod, whom Cory Aquino named to head Comelec after Ramon Felipe Jr. finished his term as chairman in 1990 and retired from public service, took steps to institute parallel count to dispel nasty rumors and questions about Comelec’s institutional integrity. Monsod made sure that the institutional body to conduct parallel count would be a joint body that had media and citizens as key components.

Hence, the Media Citizens’ Quick Count, or MCQC, was born in 1991. The media arm was composed of the various media outfits at that time; they were mostly traditional media – newspapers, magazines, and broadcast networks (radio networks and TV stations.) The citizens’ arm was the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel). Namfrel had a sterling record of being the main citizens’ arm in the 1986 “snap” presidential elections.

Namfrel was not new to parallel count. It did its parallel count of the 1986 presidential elections, where it had Cory Aquino as winner, but had to stop its unofficial count at 75 percent, when it could no longer retrieve election returns from the field in what was widely described as fraudulent elections under the Marcos dictatorship.

Marcos had to call a snap presidential elections because of serious questions on his legitimacy as president of the Philippines. The international community viewed him as a mere interloper, as he ruled the country without any mandate from the Filipino people.

Quick count was a misnomer; the appropriate term was parallel count. Even Monsod knew no one could trust Comelec’s official count. Comelec, at that time, was a dubious institution with a dubious reputation when it came to its primary mandate - vote count and overseeing the conduct of elections. It was described as a major institution that had to learn how to count.

Hence, a parallel count is premised on the sordid reality that Comelec as the electoral watchdog is capable of institutional cheating. Empirical data show it cheats to favor certain candidates. The 1986 presidential elections was a classic example. Comelec, as an institution, went all out to cheat Cory Aquino in favor of Ferdinand Marcos.

The scandalous manner how Comelec cheated was well chronicled to the point that the international community did not accept Marcos electoral victory in 1986. It was a major antecedent to the 1986 EDSA People Revolution that toppled the Marcos dictatorship.

When conducted by reputable private watchdog organizations, a parallel count would provide a double check on Comelec’s official count. A parallel count would give protesters the basis for their electoral protests. A parallel count is the best way to ensure the integrity of political exercises.

The Comelec official count and the parallel count have the same bases: election returns from the fields. The parallel count we had at MCQC was even stringent because it went down to the precinct level.

Monsod wanted the parallel count to succeed because it was his way to prove that the restored democracy was working. The 1992 presidential elections was the first presidential polls to be held after the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution. Besides, Monsod was one of the framers of the 1987 Constitution. He wanted the restored democracy to succeed.

The 1992 presidential elections went smoothly. Fidel V. Ramos won the elections. MCQC did its job of a parallel count. Its report to the Comelec says its parallel count covered over 98 percent of all election returns.

Eddie Nuque, who was MCQC executive director and with whom I worked closely (I was directly under him), had prepared a complete report detailing the extent of its parallel count. In fact, the MCQC parallel count project was a model of other emerging democracies that included the likes of Nepal, among others.

FAST FORWARD TO MAY 10, 2010. It was the first presidential polls that used the automated electoral system. The use of automated election system was Comelec’s answer to criticisms that its official count was slow and prone to fraud.

The 2010 presidential elections was unique in the sense that nobody, even Monsod, knew exactly the use of parallel count in an automated election system. Since winners could be known in a matter of hours, it made no sense to conduct a parallel count.

A parallel count was most useful in previous presidential elections because they employed manual count. Actually, it took weeks for a manual count to determine the winners. A manual count is essentially a slow count.

The 2004 presidential elections, the last to have employed a manual count, was manipulated to have GMA and Noli de Castro proclaimed as winners. Even Monsod, the election guru, had a hard time figuring out the role of private watchdogs to ensure free, clean, and honest elections in an automated election system.

I was the media consultant of the Legal Network for Truthful Elections (Lente), a civil society organization that has been formed in 2007 to provide legal services to fraternal organizations that work to ensure fair elections. Lente was also empowered to provide legal services on electoral protests and cases brought to court.

There was hardly a parallel count of the 2010 presidential elections, but it was a different story in the 2019 midterm elections, when the PPCRV, Comelec’s citizens arm, together with various media outfits have formed a parallel count project to enable the people to know immediately the outcome of the elections.

But the transparency server collapsed at 6:15 pm, or a few minutes after the polling precincts had closed. There were numerous criticisms about the absence of the PPCRV-KBP parallel count and by the time, Comelec had resumed its transparency server, it had the candidates of Hugpong as either winning or leading, triggering serious doubts about the integrity of the elections.

We don’t know the mechanics of a parallel count. At this point, it’s best to look into the parallel country of PPCRV-KBP to determine the integrity of the elections results. Without looking into the parallel count, the results sre still subject to serious doubts.

FAST FORWARD TO 2020. The worst pandemic due to the novel coronavirus is affecting the world, leading to the infection of over three million worldwide. Many countries, including the Philippines, have instituted lockdowns and quarantine measures.

The prognosis is the Philippines would be among the countries to relax its quarantine measures. It would be back to normal within this year. Soon, the entire country would address the 2022 presidential elections. Candidates vying for the country’s top political post would appear from the horizon to offer themselves as alternatives.

As it has been customary in the last six post-Marcos presidential elections, the process would be intense and emotional. The dynamics would be passionate and nerve-wracking. Candidates are not expected to give any quarters to the opponents.

Given the lessons of the 2019 midterm elections when the transparency server broke down minutes after the start of official count and winners had emerged after six or seven hours of disappearance, it has been asserted that measures should be taken to prevent the repetition of the nasty experience.

There are suggestions to have a parallel count of the results of the 2022 presidential elections. How this would be done is something that has to be conceptualized by elections gurus and technicians. This is a matter expected to dominate in brainstorming sessions.

So much is at stake in 2022. We should not allow Inferior Davao and its chief sponsor – China – to tamper with our electoral system. They have to be stopped before the Philippines becomes a province of China.    

 (OJO: I would discuss this issue in the next blogs.)