A fractured democracy like ours continues to have mechanisms for election management. If a province is a hot spot, the Commission on Elections takes direct control of it during the campaign period. If warlords brandish their armies as they barnstorm, the police and military are mandated to disarm them. If a reelectionist congressman is suspected of being a drug lord, well, a competent government, rather than deploying investigators against its critics, should have thrown the books at him prior to this day!