Lanao del Sur
The Kontra Daya sent a 17-member Observer Mission to Lanao del Sur to monitor the special elections held on May 26. Lanao has 39 municipalities and one city. Failure of elections was declared in 13 municipalities last May 14 thus the reason for special polls.
The special elections held recently in this province amounted to a farcical exercise and was thus rendered extremely vulnerable to vote manipulation. Chaos was the order of the day. Kontra Daya witnessed first hand numerous violations of the new Election Code. Evidence of the Comelec’s gross inefficiency, incapacity and, worse, complicity in the cheating, were too rampant to ignore.
At the Magandia Amaloy Elementary School in Masiu town, for example, the KD Mission witnessed the following violations:
* There were no lists of voters posted at the polling precincts;
* There were no secrecy folders and lists of candidates inside the polling precincts;
* Poll watchers of candidates were inside the polling precincts and were seen dictating to the voters on who to vote for;
* Voters who had already voted were not marked with indelible ink by the Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs). When we asked one voter, he replied, matter-of-factly, “para makaboto uli.” (..(Its) so that I can vote again)
It was worse at the Pangandaman Central Elementary School in the same town. In all of the six precincts, poll watchers of local candidates and soldiers doing guard duty took turns in filling out the ballots of every voter. Voters did not complain or resist because they said this is the “norm” during elections.
The counting of votes was not done inside the polling precincts. The BEIs said that doing so would be too dangerous for them. After the casting of ballots, the ballot boxes were instead brought to Marawi City for counting. Since 1995, this has reportedly been the practice.
Members of accredited poll watchdog groups were barred from entering the counting areas, specifically at the People’s Park and at the Marawi National High School. The soldiers guarding these counting areas said the counting had not started or that they were not given instructions by the Comelec provincial officer to allow observers to enter.
A national broadsheet reported the “meteoric rise” in the number of registered voters in Lanao del Sur between 2004 and 2007. For the past three years, the voting population increased by 121,150 voters or 43.9 percent.
Many voters did not vote for national positions, i.e. senators and party-lists; at the same time, election officers appeared not to bother tallying votes for said positions. At the Amai Pak Pak Central Elementary School in Marawi City, for instance, the BEIs did not announce the votes for senatorial candidates and party list groups; hence, there were no tallies for these. In the same precinct, the tally sheets for the national positions were nonchalantly being used as table cloth while poll watchers sat on them. The same disregard for the votes of senators and partylists was happening at precincts 15-A, Barangay Diromoyod, and 009-A, Barangay Cabuntongan. When a member of the Mission asked for an explanation, one of the BEIs said they were ordered not to count the votes.
Alienation from the Manila government and national politics in general seems to be one reason behind this apparent indifference to the elections for senators and party lists. Another plausible explanation is the Comelec’s utter lack of a sustained education campaign on their significance and importance. In light of this situation coupled with instructions amounting to coercion given the BEI members, it becomes quite easy for the cheaters to fill out the tally sheets, the election returns (ERs) and Certificated of Canvass (COCs) themselves.
ABS-CBN senior correspondent Ricky Carandang and DZMM reporter Noel Alamar were able to uncover the questionable, if not illegal, transfer of ERs from the provincial capitol to a hotel in Iligan City where Comelec officials were billeted. Comelec Commisioner, Rene Sarmiento, eventually acknowledged the transfer (after initially denying this fact to the two reporters) by saying that he ordered the transfer based on a recommendation of the SAG.
When subsequently interviewed, Sarmiento said there was nothing irregular about the incident. After their expose’, Carandang and Alamar have been receiving death threats. We can only suspect that operators of the ongoing massive fraud are the ones behind this kind of harassment.
The rottenness of the electoral process is exemplified in the Lanao del Sur elections. The Comelec failed in overseeing fair and free and honest elections, especially in Lanao del Sur, where the poll body was an abject failure. The heated and often violent conflicts among local rival politicians simply provide the fertile ground for crooked election officers, acting as a criminal syndicate, to engage in wanton election fraud.
The extreme poverty of the Maranaos is also being exploited by the cheaters. Lanao del Sur is among the top 20 poorest provinces. Nine of its municipalities (Marogong, Piagapo, Tuburan, Sultan Dumalondong, Calanogas, Binidayan, Kapatagan, Bumbaran, Pagayawan) were included in the country’s 40 poorest municipalities in the year 2000.
Maranaos are commonly known as the Muslim tribe that derived its livelihood from trading activities or what is called “buy-and-sell”. In the rural areas, the Maranaos trade their local products such as palay (rice grains), corn, coconut, tobacco and coffee. In urban centers, they vend a wide array of products such as low-budget apparel, costume jewelry, movies in VCDs and DVDs, etc.
2007 Elections
