Gloria gov’t peace nego useless amid poll fraud raps, scams — UN report

From the Tribune:

Allegations of poll fraud and other scandals rocking President Arroyo's administration have not only cast doubts on the reliability and value of peace negotiations between the government and local insurgent groups, but have also placed in focus whether the system is capable of reform, a United Nations report stated.

“No genuine solution to the insurgency can be proposed without ensuring the equality, fairness and integrity of electoral contests as a precondition as the “Hello Garci” wiretapping scandal surrounding the political crisis in the country,” the UN Development Program (UNDP) report said.

In its 2005 Philippine Human Development Report, it took note of the massive electoral fraud in past elections and the wiretapping scandal involving President Arroyo and former Commission on Elections Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.

Such allegations, the report pointed out, have cast serious doubts on the integrity and sincerity of the government in pursuing peace with rebel groups such as the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army (CPP-NPA).

“With the massive electoral fraud that marks Philippines electoral exercises, the radical Left are skeptical to join the mainstream political life to advocate its aims armed with nothing more than the weapons of criticism rather than resorting to criticism by weapons.”

“On top of this,” the report added, “is the profound crisis engulfing the country's political system - underscored by the 'Garci' wiretapping scandal where even mainstream participants themselves consider the current electoral process a mockery of a genuine democracy and question its capacity to deliver fair and honest results,” it added.

Because the conduct of elections is central to the entire issue of insurgency, the report said the sharpest question is whether this system is capable of reform.

“Can it reach a level of maturity comparable to that in industrial democracies, where parties can advocate widely diverging ideologies and alternate in power or share it without risking loss of human life and catastrophic disruptions of social existence?” the report said.

Despite the President's public apology and her admission to committing a “lapse of judgement” for calling up an election official at the height of vote counting, the public and Mrs. Arroyo's political opponents were not pacified as demands for her resignation continue to increase and coup rumors are becoming more persistent.

“It should be clear that any real solution of the communist-led armed conflict must involve an acceptance by at least the bulk of the rebel movement's followers that the present political system, for all its obvious imperfections, is at bottom a democratic system open to reform,” the UN said.

The report noted that history and the current operation of the existing political system give ample basis for skepticism.

Historically, it explained, candidates of the Democratic Alliance, which included a number of communists, were legitimately elected to Congress in 1946 but expelled through the machinations of the dominant vested interests.

The UN observed that even today, the constraints of the party-list system militate against the success of ideology-based parties.

Obstacles range from the rules themselves like limitations on seats, the wide discretion givento the Comelec in applying the rules to unwritten realities such as the harassment and assassination of candidates and political workers of Left-leaning parties, the report said.

“And even if the GRP-NDF peace negotiations never reach the agenda item of political and constitutional reforms, it would still be a step in the path to peace to pursue the electoral and other reforms addressing the root causes of internal armed conflicts and social unrest,”the report said.

Despite the Congress' dismissal of the impeachment complaint against Mrs. Arroyo, which had, as part of the charge, the poll rigging engaged in by the administration and Comelec officials, the issue has not died down with more and more Filipinos questioning the legitimacy of the President

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