Special Report: All across Davao City, the Southern Mindanao region, the whole of Mindanao and around the country, the travails of voters like Revel Ian Rakasa — who looked for his name for three hours before finally giving up — became all too familiar tales of disenfranchisement. And election observers are convinced that the way elections are being done in the Philippines is undermining democracy itself.
DAVAO CITY — Revel Ian Rakasa, a 24-year-old resident of Talomo Proper, spent nearly three hours looking for his name. He hopped from one voting precinct to another, elbowing his way through the throng of equally exasperated voters, their necks growing stiff looking at the pages of papers stapled on walls and blackboards. All to no avail.
Rakasa finally gave up around lunch time, when he was already feeling the pangs of hunger.“I have decided not to vote anymore,” he told davaotoday.com. “I really felt tired searching for my name since this morning. I’m alive but I couldn’t find my name while the dead people were on the list.”
All across the city, in Southern Mindanao, the whole of Mindanao and around the country, the travails of voters like Rakasa became all too familiar tales of disenfranchisement. And observers are convinced that the way elections are being done in the Philippines is undermining democracy itself.
Members of the People’s International Observers Mission (People’s IOM), some of whom were assigned at Compostela Valley province to observe Monday’s elections, pointed out at a press conference days after the polls that the process was complex and leaves a lot of room not just for mistakes but fraud as well.
Alexander Jones, an observer from Scotland, called the process “seriously fraud-sensitive.” Shadi Gilani from the Netherlands said these defects “can enhance cheating very easily.”
Among the flaws, mistakes, defects and shortcomings of Monday’s elections that the observers noticed and davaotoday.com saw in its own reporting were the following:
Vote buying. In Doña Pilar Elementary School, a chairman of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) claimed that Tita Castillo, a Comelec assistant and a relative of Nograles, gave out 500 pesos to the BEIs the night before the election. “The Comelec was giving out cash. They even asked us not to complain. Of course we won’t because we are under her,”the BEI chairman, who requested anonymity, told davaotoday.com
In Apolinario Mabini Elementary School, Lita, a 41year-old a resident of Bangkal, Davao City, said she received 500 pesos in exchange for voting for the administration’s Team Unity. “I accepted it because I somehow need it. Even then, I doubt if he will win.”
Chaos and disorderly conduct. Too many “unofficial personnel” could enter the canvassing area and could, as Jones pointed out, “allow anyone seeking to disrupt the process a very easy access.”
In Pantukan, the observers noticed instances of vote shaving and other forms of fraud but they couldn’t follow-up on the cases because of the chaos in the rooms.
The absence of poll watchers. This allows fraud to be perpetrated.
The absence of lawyers in the canvassing. These lawyers should be the ones to raise protests if irregularities are reported.
Substandard election materials. The seals on election returns could be easily peeled off. “Seals were easily peeled off without damaging the envelope,” said Jones, one of the observers in Pantukan. There were also instances of indelible ink being washed off easily.
Ballot boxes that do not look alike. Gilani, the observer from the Netherlands, found it “a bit strange” that the shades of the ballot boxes were not similar. “There were different shades,” she said. How would one know that these ballot boxes were real or had not been replaced with tampered ones, she asked.
Missing names. “I was here as early as 7 in the morning but I was not able to vote because I couldn’t find my name,” complained Bolo Antimo, 81, a retired chief inspector of the Land Transportation Office (LTO), who went to the Piedad Elementary School in Toril to vote.
“We did not experience these cases in the last elections,” said a chairman of a board of election inspectors who requested anonymity. “Now, aside from the problem of voters not being able to vote, names of dead persons still appeared on the list. In my precinct, there are four. Fortunately, the relatives of the dead persons were sincere enough to tell us”
Yolanda Tina, chairman of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) at a precinct at the Jose Bastida Elementary School in Toril, explained that the names were not missing. “They only have trouble in locating their names because the Comelec has rearranged the list of voters and precincts numbers. Apparently, they assumed that their corresponding precinct number will be the same as in the last election,” she said.
Lack of electricity, supplies and equipment. In Marilog District, the lack of electricity is one of the main problems especially during the elections, according to Sustinez Botanas, a retired principal of Marahan West Elementary School in Sitio Marahan, Marilog.
“During the counting, we could have finished it as early as 8 in the evening, but because we only use Petromax, we usually end at least around 10 in the evening,” Botanas said.
One of the precincts had to suspend the counting for 10 minutes because they could not find a replacement light bulb.
In Marilog, election inspectors in certain polling precincts complained about the late arrival of election paraphernalia, which should have arrived at least the day before. The materials arrived, through helicopters, at past noon of May 14, when a number of voters had already gone home and with less than three hours before the polling precincts were to close.
Unclear marks on the candidates’ list. For instance, the Comelec had put stars or asterisks after the names of candidates or partylist groups with pending disqualification case. The marking had an impact on voters who didn’t know any better.
“There were only a few names with stars. I thought maybe there was something wrong with them,” said Menchie Brigole, 31, a housewife who said she avoided the names with the stars.
The legends that would have explained these symbols to voters were too small to be noticed.
“The board of election inspectors did not even orient us about these symbols,” Brigole said.
In Piedad Elementary School in Crossing Bayabas, Toril, the election inspectors and poll clerks could not explain the legends, saying that they did not receive any advice from the higher ups about the pending cases.
Disregard of election laws by parties and candidates. In many polling centers, workers for parties or candidates were seen distributing sample ballots, which is against the law.
In Quezon Elementary School, a confrontation between the independent anti-fraud organization People’s Net and some officials of Barangay Quezon ensued when a Hugpong watcher complained that some barangay officials were giving out sample ballots at a waiting shed set up by the camp of Rep. Prospero Nograles.
Threats, violence and intimidation. The observers in Compostela Valley documented at least 20 cases victimizing supporters of partylist organizations and candidates, some of whom were tagged by the military as supporters of the New People’s Army.
“We heard a number of reports from local citizens in the areas we visited of a strong and often threatening military presence,” Jones said.
The observers experienced this themselves when they had to go through military roadblocks and checkpoints in New Bataan and Pantukan for their mission.
“A lot of local people in the area feel that a strong military presence is a threat to their voting freedom,” Jones, the Scottish observer, said.
Gill Boehringer, a delegate from Australia, conceded that while having a comprehensive view of an event as complex as a Philippine election is difficult, the two things that people should keep in mind are patterns and behaviors.
“What we know is that these are repeated through the years, in particular areas,” he said. “There is indeed a pattern of violation of election laws, generally. We can see patterns across the country.”
The observers agreed that, clearly, a lot of things need to be done to make elections in the Philippines a truly democratic exercise.
Observers from the Asian Network for Free Elections (Anfrel), who monitored the elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, proposed several steps that can be done:
* The problem is mostly about the implementation and law enforcement. Impunity for election offences must be addressed.
* The law on campaign finance should be enforced. Overspending must be discouraged, and the source of funding should be clear.
* In order to cut down the cost of campaigning, and enhance accountability and representation, senators could be elected by region rather than nationwide.
* The provision of the 1987 Constitution against political dynasties should be implemented by law to limit the number of politicians from same family or political clan.
* Comelec must be more professional and need to disqualify those who misuse their power.
* The local election should be separated from the national one, to make the process more simple and transparent.
* The law on electoral modernization should be implemented for counting to prepare for coming elections. (Cheryll D. Fiel, Jetty Ayop-Ohaylan, Marilou M. Aguirre, Krupska Lenina Apit, Joan Soco, Glory Pearl Dy and Melody Nicholas/davaotoday.com)
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