CLEAN THE SLATE: To save the Commission on Elections from the infighting slowly but surely wrecking it, Comelec Chairman Alfredo Benipayo said yesterday he is willing to have the poll body start on a clean slate by having all commissioners, including himself, resign to give way to a new team.

Benipayo is locked in a bitter quarrel with some of the older commissioners who apparently have their own idea of how the Comelec should be run and how juicy contracts should be farmed out.

With his detractors in the commission holding the majority, Benipayo has been stalemated — resulting in the Comelec’s preparation for upcoming elections being tied up in endless debate.

If only Benipayo quit, that would amount to surrendering the Comelec to the oppositionist bloc that happens to be in the 4-3 majority. As an end-game solution, the chairman said he was willing to resign with the rest of the commissioners.

* * *

THICK LARD DRIPPING: But will the other commissioners resign and give up the thick lard dripping, according to insiders, from the P6.5-billion contract for the computerization of the ID system for registered voters?

Obviously, the juicy contract is at the center of the current dispute. The big question is who among the Comelec officials would catch the windfall from it. That’s how low some of our poll officials have fallen.

It actually looks ridiculous, because as Benipayo has pointed out, while just the registration/ID project (not yet the full modernization of the poll process) has a tag price of P6.5 billion, the Comelec’s budget for it is only P1.2 billion. Benipayo says that the same ID plan should cost only around P500 million!

We plain folk are not even asking for poll modernization. We just want simple, clean and honest elections — never mind if our process is not an expensive copy of the modern hi-tech poll rigmarole of the rich countries.

So, how about it? Let all of them resign and their replacements appointed immediately.

* * *

DROP DEATH PENALTY?: If the senator friends of Erap Estrada want to save their erstwhile benefactor from the death chamber — a possibility in the event of a conviction of the heinous crime of plunder — they need not make a wholesale repeal of the death penalty law.

The allies of Erap in the Senate need not worry about his possibly being dealt the lethal injection. It will never happen. Not in this country.

First, at the rate his lawyers have been delaying his trial, by the time a decision is ready for promulgation, Erap would be past 70 years old, at which age nobody is allowed under the laws of this country to be meted the death penalty.

Second, even assuming Erap were sentenced to death, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (after her sure reelection in 2004) would want to appear magnanimous and promptly grant her predecessor some clemency.

So, dear senators, tama na yang repeal of the death penalty law. Anyway, Erap must have noticed your grateful thoughtfulness by now, as he had noted your having passed earlier a resolution for his going to the US for knee surgery.

* * *

TRIVIALIZING IMPEACHMENT: With the senator wife of Erap blasting away at the Supreme Court for its upholding the legitimacy of the Arroyo presidency, some of the ammo bearers of the ousted president are opening another front by demanding the impeachment of Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr.

(Her gallant colleagues agreed not to rise to interpellate Sen. Loi Estrada, the same kid-gloves treatment accorded then Sen. Gene “No comment” Magsaysay during the rare times he spoke from the floor.)

If we may give unsolicited advice, Supreme Court bashers better stop banging their heads against the wall. No way can Davide or any associate justice be impeached on the basis of the judicial stand he takes on legal issues brought before the tribunal.

Filing impeachment charges against SC justices for rendering decisions not to the liking of Erap and his followers would trivialize the rarely used recall process enshrined in our Constitution against abusive high officials.

Creating an appellate forum beyond the Supreme Court, with a view of undoing by extra-legal means what the court of last resort has done, would wreak havoc on our judicial system and the entire establishment.

It would be a gross error, a disservice to the nation, for the Erap camp to try replacing the rule of law with mob rule.

* * *

GRAPPLING WITH GLOBALIZATION: We’re hearing a reprise of the debate over this third-world country’s clambering on the globalization wagon of the World Trade Organization.

As we understand the critics of globalization, their main argument is that we are puny, disorganized, and generally unprepared to compete with the trading giants.

In reaction, we just want to quote from a speech of John Gokongwei Jr., the 75-year-old patriarch of the Gokongwei business empire, delivered some time ago before Ateneo students:

“…Now I am in what you can probably call the Age of Globalization. I am always asked where I stand on this issue. I say that it does not matter where I stand because as sure as the Ateneo basketball team will win next year’s UAAP championship, global barriers will come crashing down, and we have no choice but to prepare ourselves for that. (JG is a La Sallian. — fdp)

“Still our company will not take globalization sitting down. Our future and the country’s depend on how we act now. JG operates branded food concerns in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, China, and soon, Vietnam. We also sell our snack foods in India, Korea, and Taiwan — one of the few ASEAN companies to do so.

“In a few years, when foreign products find their way into our shopping carts as they already have, we want Piattos and Chippy to find their way into their shopping carts as well. Our dream is to be the first group to plant the Philippine flag throughout Asia.”

You may take a dim view of JG’s junk food flooding regional markets, but instead of cowering in fear or whining about the unfair competition brought upon us by globalization, it makes sense to prepare to grab the globalization bull by the horns.

Gokongwei’s speech, which is short and in plain language, is must reading for would-be entrepreneurs, especially the young and the not-so-young who want to try their mettle in the world of business. We can forward to interested readers a copy of the JG speech that we have received from the Pinoy55 cybertambayan site.