The Philippine Online Chronicles

Even as the United States and the European Union, through their officials here, congratulated the Philippines for the “generally peaceful and orderly” first automated election, an independent group of foreign observers presented an opposite opinion.

The US Embassy in Manila issued a statement saying that the country “achieved another milestone in the nation’s democratic history” while European Union’s ambassador to the Philippines, Alistair MacDonald, said he was impressed with the high voter turnout and the “admirable patience” shown by the voters.

Both the US and EU embassies sent observers to different parts of the country.

However, while 86 foreign delegates to the People’s International Observers’ Mission (People’s IOM) also praised the “resilience” of the Filipino people, they concluded that the election was neither fair nor honest.

Coming from Australia, Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Hongkong, France, Germany, Denmark, Argentina and New Zealand, the People’s IOM participants monitored elections in hot spots such as Abra, Pampanga, Tarlac, Cavite, Quezon, Albay, Sorsogon, Iloilo, Davao del Sur, Surigao, Lanao del Sur, and the urban poor communities of Tondo and Payatas in Metro Manila.

The observers said they witnessed rampant vote-buying, violations of laws on campaigning, election-related violence and widespread intimidation of voters, among others.

“The Philippine government is not committed to free and honest elections,” the group said, adding that the Commission on Elections (Comelec), Smartmatic and the Arroyo government were accountable for the problems encountered.

The People’s IOM came up with the following findings after synthesizing the observations of teams spread out in the country’s nine regions:

• There was a sore lack in the preparations such as lack of teachers and lack of technicians; too few precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines; no back-up plans, among other things;
• There was general chaos and confusion in the voting process such as overcrowding due to the clustered precincts and there was no uniformity in procedures;
• There was lack of secrecy in the voting process such as people in the precincts watching, taking pictures of voters and people seen outside the polling places dictating to voters whom to vote for;
• There were clear violations of laws on campaigning such as poll watchers wearing campaign T-shirts and bringing campaign paraphernalia inside the precincts;
• Vote-buying was prevalent as shown by people lining up in politicians’ houses, people being paid not to vote and people distributing campaign materials with money clipped in;
• There was election-related violence such as cases of intimidation and harassment coming from armed groups of candidates, landlords and the military. It cited the case of Abra which was a "ghost town the night of the elections and the violence that erupted in Tugaya, Lanao del Sur;
• The heavy presence of military and police in the communities and within the polling places contributed to or caused a climate of fear;
• Political dynasties and their armed militias still lord it over local politics;
• There was a systematic vilification campaign against leftist senatorial candidates Satur Ocampo, Liza Maza and eight progressive partylist groups; and
• Political and economic inequality creates vulnerability to intimidation and vote buying.

Speaking after the ten-day mission, Reverend Larry Emery, one of the American foreign observers, said that the automated election did not solve the problems of vote-buying, of intimidation and other issues that come up during the Philippine elections.

The People’s IOM recommended to the Comelec to provide more voters’ education seminars to empower them to exercise their rights; install systematic voting procedures, to include ensuring access for the elderly and the differently-abled; for the voting process, implement a more accessible and secure system of voters’ verification.

The group also called on the Comelec to ensure secrecy of the ballot; institute a process where the voter could verify what was recorded by the machine; ensure transparency in the transmission process; validate the results of the elections through completing the process of manual audit; provide more technicians and improve on-site technical support, among others.

The People’s IOM submitted its findings and recommendations to Senator Francis Escudero, co-chairman of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on the Automated Elections System (JCOC-AES).

In response, Escudero said the JCOC will compile all the reports and will leave the work of giving recommendations to the next Congress JCOC.

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