CRANE-Caramoan

How right Solita Monsod was in her column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer issue of April 14, 2007 that wholesale cheating could take place with the board of canvassers, which include teachers, conniving with favored candidates. Monsod was commenting on the transfer of the Naga City Schools Superintendent whom Mayor Jesse Robredo has been using in partisan gimmicks like the shadowy QUEEN project that pretend to assume payment of school fees using school board funds to serve the shrewd mayor’s objectives.

School board funds in Naga City are grossly inadequate to pay school fees of elementary and high school students that would have required close to P 20 million, but with DepEd vouching with the mayor, parents were misled. But that was just one facet of the teachers’ role in this election.

Monsod was right in saying that teachers could very much alter the results of an election. For several elections now, henchmen of Mayor Robredo have been suspected of massive ballot switching and other fraudulent poll manipulations, including doctored election results hastily posted on tally boards to condition the minds of constituents to the final outcome yet being “processed”. Some teachers were intimidated to carry out the nefarious scheme, others paid.

This suspicion blew into the open after the 1998 election when City Councilor Fiel Rosales revealed in a privilege speech before the Sangguniang Panglungsod how he was cheated. He ran then as an independent, unable to get the support of Robredo even if he had been a topnotcher councilor and even when he had supported Robredo in his entire political career. It was very clear from Rosales’ revelations that aside from Robredo’s poll manipulators some teachers were part of the cheating.

Robredo knows so well the potentials in harnessing teachers during the election that was why he wanted to ensure that everyone at DepEd starting with the Schools Superintendent is at his beck and call. The transfer of the School Superintendent may, therefore, have upset some plans.