Imperfections

With the automation, it won’t be long until we see the imprints of yesterday’s elections. As of press time, the exercise had been generally peaceful and orderly, but not spared of minor snags that were anyway promptly addressed by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Not to be swept under the rag though were cases of election-related violence leading up to the elections. The spate of killings in San Fernando town, for instance. The Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines mobilized their forces to safeguard the electoral process.

There were reports of arrests of persons allegedly involved in vote buying. With the automation and the campaign getting considerably cheaper with social media engagement, there was campaign kitty to spend somewhere else, and thus vote buying could be a thing to highlight in the recent and future elections.

There were, on the other hand, cases of defective marking pens, corrupted memory cards and glitches in the vote counting machines (VCMs). As the Comelec assured, these were properly replaced, the protocols followed to ensure no voter would be disenfranchised.

There were, however, two glaring issues that needed attention. They came too close to election day that it was impossible to properly address them and be discussed sufficiently as a matter of public concern. On May 8, a Comelec resolution named the administration party Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) as the dominant majority and the Nacionalista Party (NP)

as the dominant minority party.

It should be noted that a number of the NP candidates were part of the administration alliance. There were Imee Marcos, Cynthia Villar and Pia Cayetano. By intent alone, it was incomprehensible how an ally could be part of a minority or opposition for that matter.

As an effect of the Comelec resolution, the Liberal Party, fielding the Otso Diretso candidates and, yes, by intent, the only real opposition, did not have official access to documents—the sixth copies of the election returns, transmitted precinct returns, eighth copies of the certificates of canvass. The LP also could not deploy watchers in official capacity in precincts and canvassing centers.

To name a few, the Comelec en banc decision highlighted “numbers” and “organizational strengths” in choosing the NP as the dominant minority. So where did that leave citizens voting for the opposition? In the dark, apparently.

Another issue to be noted in this election was the withdrawal of poll watchdog National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections from Comelec’s accreditation for reasons that the latter did not approve of its project of getting access to the poll body’s election data website. The lack of access will leave Namfrel blind from the actual count and transmission down to the code level. Namfrel Secretary General Eric Alvia said it’d be like getting the scores at the end of a basketball game without having to watch the play.

The next elections will be in 2022. The public has three years to ask for better foresight on the part of the poll body.