EDITORIAL — Conceding with dignity

Because it is essentially a contest, an election will always have winners and losers. While some of those who lost will ultimately bow out, concede with dignity, and go on with life, not all of them act the same way. Not all of them are willing to admit defeat and move on.

We see this in the case of former Cebu City mayor Michael Rama and senatorial bets Bong Revilla, and Apollo Quiboloy.

Rama has filed an election protest before the Commission on Elections and is now asking for a manual recount of the votes. Quiboloy has also called for a manual recount of the votes, although he has yet to file his own election protest until now. Meanwhile, Revilla is suing five to 10 individuals he blames for being behind social media posts that allegedly cost him a Senate slot.

While they do have the right to file for a protest and call for a manual recount, we should add that in the cases of Rama and Quiboloy, they weren’t close to victory at all. With only 5.7 million votes, Quiboloy placed 31 in the list of senatorial candidates, very far from the Magic 12. Meanwhile, Rama only got 90,916 votes compared to Mayor-elect Nestor Archival’s 256,197 votes. But between them is second-placer Raymond Alvin Garcia with his own 134,404 votes, even more votes than Rama.

Garcia would be in a better position to file an election protest if he wanted to, even though Archival’s lead is also overwhelming.

In the case of Revilla, everyone who ran for senator during the last election --at least those who were seen to make the Magic 12-- became a target of mudslinging on social media. But we don’t hear those who almost made it aside from him complaining.

It would be better for Rama and Quiboloy to just acknowledge their defeat instead of asking for something that will just cost the government more time, money, and resources, but likely still not yield the results they want. In the case of Revilla, it would be more dignified if he just admitted that star power didn’t help him and other celebrities without political experience who ran during the last election, either that or the voters just didn’t want him back in the Senate anymore.