Win or lose, some politicians tend to treat Mindanao ballots as an ATM of last resort.

Winners hustle to pad their leads, journalist Carolyn O. Arguillas told a Philippine Press Institute seminar in Cagayan de Oro. Losers also scrounge there to paper over their defeats. Wasn’t that what Comelec Virgilio Garcillano’s “phone pal” asked about? And didn't that stoke the bitter brawl between Aquilino Pimentel III and Juan Miguel Zubiri over the 12th Senate slot?

Electoral integrity – or fraud – determines the quality of governance. It impacts on lives of people, specially those who “draw life’s short straws.” Take life expectancy for Maguindanao. At 55.6 years, it lags almost a generation behind La Union’s 70.9 years

Thus, national and international efforts to curb electoral scams formed the backdrop for PPI discussions.

Fire 200 election officials in 380 districts, for tampering with Afghanistan’s first-ever elections over in Afghanista, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon demanded. President Hamid Karzai reluctantly admitted poll swindles. A November run-off is set.

“A new broom sweeps clean.” Comelec chairman Jose Melo lodged charges against 13 officials for fiddling with the 2007 elections. Newsbreak’s Aries Rufo reports that most operated in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Maguindanao provincial election supervisor Lintang Bedol simply skipped town. No one has been ever been jailed, Ms Arguillas pointed out. That resonated even when we strolled through one of Cagayan’s poorer but clean-swept barangays.

‘My mother is in prison”, volunteered a street kid, when I stopped to tighten a shoe lace. Why? “Shabu”, says Clara who is 7. A neighbor tipped off the cops, adds her playmate, Paula, 6. All drugs were burnt before the police came.

The mother now languishes in a Davao prison. “We have no money to visit,” Clara says. But my lolo was released.” He’d also been in the clink for drugs. “He often beats us though”.

Both proudly point to their school. Paula likes to color “But I have no crayolas”. Clara’s schoolbag has a book and a pencil stub, nothing else.

Paula has three brothers. “We’re 10 in my family”, Clara says. “But Kuya Ronald died.” Ten! Did your parents ever hear of family planning, I mutter. What?, they ask. Nothing.

“The teacher often marks us absent,” both complain. Why? “If our dress is being washed, then we don't have anything to wear. So, we stay home.” Paula adds wistfully: “I wish I had a new dress.”

You’ll need more than a new dress, kids. Clara and Paula are scrawnier, shorter than my grandchildren: Kristin, 6 in Cebu and Alexia, 8, in California. That points to “hidden hunger”. Short of food, micro-nutrients, medical and dental care, in early formative years, Clara and Paula’s IQs will never quite fully bloom.

These adverse effects are reproduced across generations, the Asian Development Bank notes. Iron-deficiency anemia afflicts 44 out of every 100 mothers. Ill-fed wizened mothers give birth to dwarfed children.

“Our most fractured human right is what many neighboring countries take for granted, namely the right of a child to celebrate one’s first birthday,” Viewpoint noted ( May 17,2005 ) . “In this strong republic, 21 out of every 1000 will never make to their first birthday.”

Carla and Puala each give a human face on 24, out of every 100 Pinoy families who don’t earn enough to satisfy the need for food and other essentials. The ten poorest provinces include: Zamboanga del Norte (64.6%), Maguindanao (60.4%) and Masbate (55.9%) to%) to Biliran (46.5%), and Lanao del Norte (46.5%),

They wave cheerfully as I leave. But sadness blankets me. Both will probably drop out before grade six. Out of every 100 kids who enroll, 34 will quit along the way. The number of functional illiterates in Misamis Oriental is almost 12%. That’s better than next door Bukidnon’s 27%

Many Claras and Paulas won’t have the schooling to escape life sentences to poverty. Their bleak lives mock a UN Millennium Development Goal target we’re pledged to meet by 2015 : achieve universal primary education.

The playing field isn’t level for Paula and Claudia in their barangay, and Kristin in Cebu or Alexia in San Mateo county. (“Representative Mikey Arroyo is NOT our neighbor,” my daughter e-mailed. “His ‘famous’ house is in the next city – thank heavens.”)

Alexia and Kristin get immunization shots, dental care, regular pediatrician visits, etc. Often, poor children here don’t even have a birth certificate. Their schools are substantially worse than those attended by children of “gated enclaves.”

Deprivation slices into their life expectancies. For kids in less-developed countries, infant mortality is four times higher for the poor than for the rich, the UN Human Development Report 2009 notes. Infant deaths here are triple that of Malaysia.

Equality is one thing, the World Bank notes. But equity is another. Equity isn’t about equality in incomes, health, schooling or other assets.

“Rather, it is the quest for a situation…when personal effort, preferences and initiative – and not family background, caste, race, or gender –account for the differences between people's economic achievements.

“Three basic decisions underpin the success of Nordic countries like Norway, Sweden or Denmark ,” says Columbia University ’ Earth Institute’s Jeffrey Sach.

“First, they prioritized education. Second, they built a vigorous private sector. And they made sure no one was left behind.”