“There are of course some instances in the past wherein the electoral tribunal does resolve the protest case in favor of the protestant.

One major reason election cheaters continue to cheat is that it pays to cheat for many of them, since it has proved and continues to prove, that protesting the victory of the one’s opponent is not only much too expensive but that the protest brought before the protestant’s electoral tribunal takes too long to be resolved.

It is almost as if the electoral tribunals prefer to maintain the status quo, i.e., allowing the electoral cheat to finish his term, which means that the electoral tribunal members don’t really care in many instances, that the people’s will is constantly being thwarted and disrespected.

There are of course some instances in the past wherein the electoral tribunal does resolve the protest case in favor of the protestant, after the count showed that, indeed, the protestant won his seat. However, the resolution comes on the last day of the term which seat was stolen from the protestant for a full term. Worse, the election cheat does not get penalized at all even when proved he cheated.

In cases of presidential and vice-presidential protestants, their cases hardly ever get resolved, since the Supreme Court (SC), acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, appears to prefer the status quo as there certainly has not been any presidential protestant whose case has been resolved by the PET to this day.

Instead, what has been noted by most is that the PET waits for at least three years, perhaps hoping that the protestant would abandon his case by joining the electoral race.

The protestant’s case will then be resolved easily by the PET, with the claim that the protestant has abandoned his protest, since he has joined the electoral race for a lower seat.

In the meantime, the tens of millions of pesos paid by the protestant are hardly ever returned to him, despite the fact that his case was hardly attended to by the PET.

This happened in the case brought before the PET by then presidential candidate, the late Miriam Defensor-Santiago, against Fidel Ramos. It seemed that the then SC acting as the PET had no intention of disrupting the status quo which had Fidel Ramos installed president. The reason the PET used to justify the ruling in favor of Ramos—and not because he had won the recount—is that the tribunal used abandonment of Santiago’s protest, pointing to her joining the electoral race.

Even these days, the PET has not improved by way of speeding up the protest cases lodged before it, the prime example being the case of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. against Leni Robredo who has been declared the Smartmatic’s vice president.

Tens of millions of pesos have been demanded by the PET, which it had received, the bulk of which comes from protestant Marcos.

Almost half of the vice-presidential term is finished and yet the PET has clearly been dragging its feet in resolving the case.

There is doubt that the PET, this time around, will be able to resolve this case brought by Marcos against Robredo.

“Almost half of the vice-presidential term is finished and yet the PET has clearly been dragging its feet.

The PET cannot use the excuse of abandonment of Marcos since the protestant is not joining the Senate race in 2019. But will the PET again wait for another three years before coming up with a decision that will be already moot? The PET got away too many times with its decisions of the protestants having abandoned their cases. It can’t do the same again—not in the case of Marcos Jr.

But it may still be a question of a usurper taking the seat that the Filipino people willed to the real winner.

The other day, President Duterte assured the public that there would be clean and honest mid-term elections next year.

“I commit to the Filipino people that this will be a clean election,” Duterte told a political forum in Davao.

His commitment includes warning communist rebels not to meddle in the polls. Duterte also warned the armed commies not to terrorize or extort money from the public and the political candidates in the areas where they operate.

He warned police and military too against their involvement in the polls as well as his wish to limit the number of armed guards for every politician.

That is all to the good. However, the only way clean and honest elections can come about is when automated polls, especially handled by the proven poll cheat, Smartmatic and its Comelec cheating syndicate, is out of the picture.

Perhaps the Filipinos’ sovereign will no longer be thwarted by these cheating machines if and when this automated cheating syndicate finally is out of the election picture.