‘Plan B’ vs cheating in 2019

Batas Mauricio .

TODAY, I will give way to an appeal by former Rep. Glenn Chong which he posted in his Facebook account. Together with many others, Chong is furiously working to prevent the Commission on Elections (Comelec) from using once again, in the 2019 political and electoral exercise in this country, the PCOS (or precinct count optical scan) machines of Smartmatic Inc.

Chong called on all Filipinos who can no longer stomach any election cheating to sign an online petition posted by lawyer Trixie Cruz Angeles which seeks to ensure a fraud-free voting in next year’s elections, especially because Comelec is insisting to use once more Smartmatic’s PCOS. Here is Chong’s appeal:

“The Commission on Elections has opted to continue the use of Smartmatic for the 2019 elections. Revelations made by Atty. Glenn Chong and results of examinations made in the Marcos v. Robredo vice presidential contest indicate possible massive cheating in 2016. A simple solution can check this cheating and return the people’s trust in the electoral exercise: a count of the voter’s receipts…”

Chong also said: “… We propose that at the end of the voting day, the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) convene with the watchers of the national candidates or their parties and count the votes contained in the voters’ receipts. We will call this Plan B against election cheating.

“These receipts are kept in a separate box that the BEI can open and count. We can limit the counting only to candidates for senators, congressmen, governors, mayors and partylists. After counting, these can be compared with the tally posted at the door as well as those transmitted to the city.

“This simple procedure will require no extra cost except for the small amount of time allocated for this activity. A separate written petition will be sent to the Comelec to formalize this petition, which can be accessed at change.org. Let us join the petition! Sign it now! Remember that there is no one who will help us but ourselves alone. Thank you for participating in our efforts to restore honesty in our elections.”

As I see it, it is the duty and responsibility of every Filipino to make sure that the accusations of poll cheating that are being levelled against Comelec and Smartmatic are finally laid to rest. Especially so because, in many of these accusations, even the supposed victory of former President Benigno Aquino III is said to be tainted with widespread electoral fraud perpetrated by the Comelec, under its former head, Justice Jose A. R. Melo.

Netizens can sign the online petition being pushed by lawyer Angeles.  All of us should be interested to share this fight against election cheating with our relatives, friends, and associates everywhere, for this concerns no longer just the 2019 polls. What is involved here are future generations of Filipinos. We should show to the world that Filipinos do not condone fraud, even if those involved are politically strong, rich, or powerful. If we do not speak now, who would speak for us? If we do not act, who will act for us? If we do not do anything now, when shall we act?

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In this world where we live in, it is an undisputable fact of life that nothing happens by chance or by accident. Come to think of it, everything that happens in the daily lives of men and women everywhere happens according to what God has decreed, according to His great will and design.

This is completely amazing and astounding, yes. And we cannot deny that the many, if not all, stories of our lives, especially the more important ones, approximate the scripts carefully written for the movies or for written novels. As we are won’t to say every time we witness this extraordinary reality, “truth is oftentimes stranger than fiction”, really.

Indeed, this is what I have been seeing in what Justin Bambico Mauricio and Angelie Deolan are experiencing right now. Sweethearts since eights years ago yet, they met for the very first time when both of them became students of UP Diliman. Justin is the eldest in a brood of two male children of my brother, Philip and his wife, Virgie, while Angelie is the daughter of Mr. Ramon Deolan and Mrs. Perpetua Deolan.

The first encounter between Justin and Angelie was the will and mandate of God. When Justin was entering UP Diliman for the very first time, he tried to look for courses where his talents would be relevant. He considered many courses, but, with the help of his father’s siblings (myself, my brother Leny, my sister Marisa, and my wife, Angelina), and with God’s guidance certainly, he chose to take up physical education courses, to hone his basketball skills (he has the height of a basketball player)

Angelie, on the other hand, was the pride of her high school batch in Iligan City in the field of ping pong (table tennis), which became her passport to becoming a scholar at UP Diliman. The two of them pursued different fields of expertise in sports at the UP College of Human Kinetics, which would have assured them of not meeting one another. Yet, they met nevertheless, on account of similar subjects they were to take as sports students. Coincidences? God’s will, if you ask me!

The first meeting of the two did not become their last. As days passed by with the two of them engaged in furious studies on sports excellence, they found themselves pining to meet each other again in their common subjects. What was more, they found the moments they were not classmates as moments filled with longing, and eagerness, to meet one another again.

Before long, the meetings of Justine and Angelie became highly regular even if they no longer had common subjects. They did not consciously teach themselves perhaps but, in their youthful minds, it looked as if their hearts would explode in anguish during the moments they were far from each other. And then one day, I am certain that both of them woke up with the sweet realization that they needed one another, if happiness for each of them was to be complete from then on.

It didn’t take long before the two of them started making monthly posts in Facebook, celebrating their “monthsaries”–or their monthly commemoration and remembering of the time their feelings became united in a common passion and understanding—feelings that were filled with inexplicable joy when they were with one another, and feelings of sweet agony and perplexity during the times they were not together.

These “monthsaries” by Justin and Angelie lasted for eight long years. This is the reason why the Mauricio and Bambico families are greatly thankful to God in the Name of Jesus that in the span of eight years that the two of them were in a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, the flame of true love burned ever brightly for them, unwaning, undimmed. We are also thankful that this relationship between Justin and Angelie found fulfillment in their marital union on Oct. 8, 2018, at the St. Michael’s Catherdral in Iligan City.

E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com