2008 COMELEC Mindanao-Wide Goodwill Games

The Commission on Elections, being the guardian of the ballots, is mandated to give life and meaning to the basic principle that sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them. It’s plain truth that COMELEC have been trampled into the dirt by its corrupt officials and personnel. The Hello Garci scandal, COMELEC Computerization ScamZTE deal wherein no less than the former COMELEC Commissioner Abalos found himself into trouble were only but a few scandals that the commission’s name was dragged into.

With all these hullaballoo, COMELEC officials from Mindanao thought of something that could at least put the Commission on center stage not because of scams and election frauds. The first-ever COMELEC Goodwill Games 2008 commenced on March 6. The 3-day event was hosted by Region XII composed of 3 provinces namely South Cotabato, North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat. This was participated well by six (6) regions coming from various parts of Mindanao: Regions IX, X, Xi, XII, CARAGA, and ARMM. Region VI from the Visayas was the lone visiting region which traveled their way down here to General Santos City and Sarangani Province, where the venue of the games took place.

The activity was a successful one. It fostered camaraderie and friendships among all other COMELEC personnel from the different regions. Anothet yet untold result of the Goodwill Games was the call for a genuine reform in the commission. As an ordinary employee of the Commission, I am still pinning high hopes that some officials will have to do wonders to restore the integrity and trust in the institution and to have the courage and the decisiveness to clean up the mess it is in right now.