Are we headed for a repeat of the graft-ridden election nearly a decade ago that saw someone who sounded like Gloria Macapagal Arroyo phoning  elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano about assuring a one million-vote lead in the 2004 election?

That  ‘Hello-Garci’ episode, immortalized in cellphone ringtones and YouTube parody video blogs, comes to mind in the wake of the fears being expressed by the Commission on Elections that it may be forced to declare a failure in its bidding for an Automated Election System.

This following the disqualification of all seven joint venture firms that participated in the process.

The only remaining aspect in the precarious scenario at the COMELEC is how it will rule on the reconsideration bids it has encouraged the DQ’d bidders to submit

If the bidding does fail next year’s elections will again be manual with all the attendant dangers of fraud: dagdag-bawas,  stolen ballot boxes, faked election returns and canvasses.

The end-result  would be the most dire: the installation of yet another president with a questioned mandate along with equally bogus senators, congressmen, and hey, the whole caboodle of local officials.

We would then be staring as the very destruction of the electoral system that underpins our republican democracy.

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