Last year’s national elections were unprecedented in more ways than we might imagine. Given a few short months to prepare and, in the run-up, still uncertain of its automated infrastructure, however statutorily imposed, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) was able to eventually mobilize and achieved the impossible.

In the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), in particular, the conduct of the national elections was, for the first time in many years, considered credible with not only record turnouts but with the Mindanaoans delivering a decisive mandate benefiting Benigno Aquino III.

For many, a new era in political maturity seemed to have dawned. It was a mandate that would have otherwise been unimaginable given incredulities surrounding Mindanao’s voting record, from the “Hello, Garci” scandals to controversies surrounding a legislator satirically labeled the senator from Maguindanao.

Mindanao finally shed not simply a decades-old curse but seemed also to have emerged cleansed from a festering toxic sludge of warlords, tribalism, dirty politics, fanaticism and violence. After all, previous dispensations, including Corazon Aquino’s, not only pandered to these, but actively nourished each aberration for as long as a mandate could be won.

Given Benigno Aquino III’s overwhelming mandate from 2010’s electoral exercise in Mindanao and the ARMM, it comes as a surprise that the Palace would now blame “a lack of preparation” by the Comelec, a lack of trust in duly elected officials, and the need for fiscal audits as the basis for forcing the appointment of officers in charge (OICs) to replace elective officials whose terms expire this September.

The Palace-sponsored offensive to distort the electoral calendar by sliding the August ARMM elections to coincide with the national elections in 2013 effectively empties elective positions where mandates are historically critical determinants of national outcomes. In their place, the Malacañang gambit swaps the constitutionally accountable with those who are not replacing those chosen by the governed with those chosen by whisperers—the latter infesting increasingly in inverse proportion to the competence of the chief executive to govern.

In many ways, Kaibigan Incorporated seems to have expanded into a conglomerate targeting critical markets in the ARMM. Allowing unaccountable personal emissaries and troubleshooters is one thing; corrupting the Constitution, subverting suffrage, and establishing a cabal of unaccountable powerbrokers without the consent of the governed is another.

Unfortunately, too much of the deliberations on this scheme focused on postponement issues. Too little has been debated on an apparent conspiracy to deny democratic processes, forcibly seize offices and strategically position the unaccountable in time for national elections in 2013.

For those who hatched this and, more important, for the naïvely gullible enough to fall prey to it, it seems of little importance that the ploy violates the law and assaults the very concept of autonomy where suffrage is not only integral but is the fundamental mechanism by which autonomy is exercised.

The appointment of OICs violates Republic Act (RA) 9054 that stipulates that while the president may suspend the regional governor for violations of the law, the same does not grant the president the power to replace him. Moreover, the Constitution simply vests in the president general supervisory powers over the ARMM. That does not include the power to appoint OICs to replace the duly elected nor does it extend a presidential prerogative to trash the fundamental tenet of democracy that grants the people governed the right of consent.

Consent is not acquired through sham consultations that masquerade as public hearings; much less plebiscites. Voters herded to dog-and-pony shows where factotums take turns in a virtual monologue do not quite qualify.  Disregarding the sentiments of the public in Cotabato and Marawi that declared that it is against postponement also does not qualify.

Moreover, when the circus comes to Zamboanga but misses Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, then someone should buy these guys a map. Zamboanga is not part of the ARMM.

Under RA 9054, the ARMM elections were also designed to be insulated from the national elections, allowing the government to focus its limited resources where these are critical.

To synchronize both is to misunderstand Mindanao. More than that, the synchronization, when bought and paid for through pork barrels, budget allocations and promises, raises suspicions of a more insidious agenda that capitalizes on past aberrations and perpetuates the notion that the ARMM will once more be used to control national outcomes.

Mindanao and the ARMM had come through for Aquino in 2010. It does not deserve to be denied democracy through the subversion of its rights to suffrage and the unconstitutional installation of unaccountable and unelected OICs whose appointments deviously encompass the national elections in 2013.

It is evident where this is all leading. 2010 ushered in Aquino. Others were not as fortunate. By denying democracy and subverting suffrage in the ARMM, as in the past, it will once more be possible to install either the illegitimate or those previously rejected by the electorate.