Other reports reaching the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) as of May 19 told of similar incidents: In Pantukan town, Compostela Valley, Mindanao soldiers reportedly conducted house-to-house campaigns against the same party-list groups; in North Cotabato and other provinces of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), soldiers were seen tearing down campaign posters aside from conducting smear campaigns against the party-list groups; and in Nasugbu, Batangas members of the Philippine AirForce blocked Gabriela poll watchers from entering polling precincts.
Elsewhere, in Guimba, Nueva Ecija soldiers pressured residents not to vote for the party-list groups and to vote instead for Bantay, the government-backed party of alleged rights violator, former Brig. Gen. Jovito Palparan; in La Union two Kabataan Party poll watchers were blocked by the military from entering the provincial canvassing center on May 17; and in Tondo and other communities of the National Capital Region (NCR), the presence of soldiers near polling precincts was reported by foreign election observers contrary to military claims that the troops who had been deployed in 27 barangays had been pulled out days before the eve of election.
In the week of the elections, two young poll watchers and two peasant activists were killed in two separate incidents May 15 in Capalonga, Camarines Norte and Baggao, Cagayan, allegedly by military men. Another poll watcher of BM went missing on May 18 in Abulog, Cagayan Valley where three days earlier he was barred by police and armed goons from observing the canvassing of votes.
Poll-related killings, abductions and harassment involving military and police men were recorded in 38 cases in the week of the elections, the independent Task Force Poll Watch (TFPW) reported on May 18.
Incidence of fraud
Initial and partial reports released by the TFPW, Kontra Daya, the People’s International Observers Mission (IOM) and the progressive Party-lists showed the incidence of violence and fraud committed against the progressive bloc and GO candidates taking place in at least 36 provinces so far, with about nine of them in Mindanao alone.
Moreover, massive vote-shaving in 10 provinces cut down by as much as 73 percent the votes for the PPLs and opposition candidate Loren Legarda in two days of canvassing, May 16 and 17. Other reports of major incidents of vote-shaving and other forms of cheating are starting to surface in southern Philippines particularly in Muslim provinces including Tukuran, Zamboanga del Sur where election returns (ERs) were reportedly taken to military headquarters.
The vote-shaving, a BM leader said, was “a massacre of votes, and we could only guess who are benefiting from the votes stolen from us and the Filipino people.”
If reports of the partisan operations of the military, police and other agencies in the elections are true, then not only were the rights of the duly-accredited PPLs and opposition candidates violated but more so of the voters themselves. The security institutions of the state overstepped their bounds not only by their alleged involvement in the politically-motivated killings but also by despoiling what is vaunted to be a democratic electoral exercise. Once again, what is widely believed to be the Arroyo government’s fraud machinery was at work in the elections and qualifies it as another argument for the removal of the President and in making her accountable as well to violations of the constitution and other public crimes. It has actually added credence and proof to allegations of massive fraud committed by Mrs. Arroyo’s fraud machinery in 2004.
Comelec Chair Abalos will also have to do a lot of explaining since in many of the incidents of fraud and military harassment, local election officials did nothing or simply told the protesters to withdraw their complaints. The actuations of the Comelec and its officials are another case for a sweeping revamp of the agency, as poll watch groups, Party-list groups and other sectors engaged in the electoral arena have been demanding. Unless it is reformed to make it truly independent, transparent and accountable to the people, the Comelec cannot possibly ensure a credible election.
Every inch that the state’s security agencies and other operatives of the fraud machinery rob the people of their conscience votes is a step closer for the people’s abandoning the election as a failed system and taking other political options in pursuit of their democratic interests. (CenPEG)
2007 Elections
