Whatever reason or reasons Migz has given, the fact remains that this is the first time in the Philippines that an incumbent legislator, whether senator or congressman, has voluntarily given up his seat. And the reason for this "kapit tuko" strategy is obvious: the congressperson is betting that it will take the better part of his three-year term before any decision is made on the electoral protest against him. And the senator, whose term is six years, is betting that his protesting opponent will just run again after three years, instead of waiting for the decision on his protest to be handed down.
If he's not kapit tuko, he should have conceded the elections 4 years ago like Denfensor did.
His legitimacy as senator was questioned and contested the moment he was proclaimed the 12th senator, after all the votes in Maguindanao were counted, which wiped out pimentel's decent vote lead. Maguindanao was the last area where the votes were not yet fully counted. Hinihintay lang ni Bedol at Ampatuan na matapos ang bilangan sa ibang parte ng bansa para malaman nila kung gaano kalaki ang kailangan nilang ipatong sa total vote count ni zubiri.
Zubiri should have conceded the elections like defensor and recto in 2007 and not let this drag on. He should not have used every bullshit delaying tactics like having the all ballot boxes of metro manila and other parts of the country reopened again (kasi doon raw sa manila siya nadaya ng opposition, according to zubiri's camp). he was kapit tuko all the way until one by one things started to fall apart, bedol and ampatuan started talking, military officials started confessing... he couldn't continue pretending to be a legitimately elected representative of the senate anymore.
Monsod also had something to say about the manual/automated voting systems:
Meanwhile, the real question is: What is being done to change a system that actually rewards cheating? Here are the Senate and House, with all their committee hearings "in aid of legislation" -- looking at everybody’s warts but their own, and ignoring the need for reform in its electoral protest process. And here is the Commission on Elections, still insisting on the manual (eyeballing) revision of ballots in protest cases, when one of the benefits of automation was supposed to be a drastic reduction in the time required for electoral protest decisions. And here are the Filipino people, whose collective will is being thwarted with impunity. Where is the tuwid na daan in all these?
Sorry madam, automated systems can't solve the cheating problem if rogue election officials from within the COMELEC are involved. Unless you want automated cheatings, LOL.
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