i-site’s 2007 Election Files

(This report was written by PCIJ intern Julienne Urrea.)

HALALANG Marangal’s (Halal) initial findings reveal significant discrepancies in tallies for senatorial candidates in nine provinces and one city based on data from the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel).

In Negros Occidental, the top vote gainer was Genuine Opposition (GO) candidate Francis Escudero with an additional 65,000 votes in the Comelec’s provincial certificates of canvass (PCOCs), compared with provincial breakdowns released by Namfrel based on election returns (ERs).

Team Unity (TU) candidate Vicente Magsaysay lost the most votes, with 52,200. Most of the vote gainers in Negros Occidental came from GO, while most of the vote losers came from TU.

In neighboring Negros Oriental, TU candidate Luis Chavit Singson gained 17,800 votes while independent candidate Francis Pangilinan lost 11,600 votes. The top five gainers are TU candidates while the top five losers are GO and independent candidates.

Halal noted however that Namfrel had a low completion rate of 26.6 percent in the province and that close observation would be needed at a higher completion rate. Halal said that comparisons may not be accurate due to the low completion rate of Namfrel tallies as compared to Comelec tallies.

But even in provinces like Mandaluyong City, where Halal said there is a relatively close agreement between Comelec and Namfrel tallies, discrepancies exist.

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IN many ways, the recently held midterm elections were a more-of-the-same affair, with the usual reports of disenfranchised voters on election day; the massive vote-buying and patented cheating operations to manipulate the results perpetrated during the voting, counting and canvassing of votes; and the high casualty count from poll-related violence.

That the May elections were “dirty,” however, also assumed a routinely literal meaning. Because, in spite of the initial display of political will by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), it proved futile in preventing the avalanche of election campaign materials from swamping every conceivable area all over the country in the few weeks leading to the polls.

This perennial “wastefulness” of the May elections has so exasperated a coalition of environmental advocacy groups that it has called on the Comelec to adopt “green electoral reforms” that would dramatically alter the way election campaigns are conducted in the country.

“We find that the Comelec did not exercise sufficient leadership to ensure that the elections would not only be free of fraud, but also of trash during and after the three-month campaign period,” said Rei Panaligan, coordinator of the EcoWaste Coalition. “To halt this massive assault against Mother Nature, the Comelec has to institute a zero-waste policy that will green and ensure that election activities conform with the country’s electoral and environmental laws.”

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THE resignation of Commissioner Rene Sarmiento as head of Task Force Maguindanao — the investigative panel tasked to “ferret out the truth” in the province’s midterm elections — comes as another blow to an already embattled Commission on Elections (Comelec). Observers say his resignation severely undermined whatever semblance of credibility the poll body has.

Sarmiento, the commissioner in charge of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), said his failing health forced him to step down. But in what may be the first time in his career as a public servant, nobody seems to believe Sarmiento, who is regarded by many as the most credible commissioner in the poll body.

The move was ill-timed, and speculations on the “real reason” are rife: Sarmiento was eased out so that the cheats could cover up for the anomalies in Maguindanao; the political pressure to keep him quiet on the Maguindanao situation proved too much for the commissioner; or that it was Sarmiento’s way of saying that he refuses to be used as a deodorizer for the poll body.

Last week, the Comelec had to defer the canvassing of the certificate of canvass of Maguindanao following allegations of massive poll fraud in the province. The results, with 213,191 votes at stake, could largely affect the outcome of the senatorial race.

Earlier results showed a 12-0 victory for the administration-backed Team Unity (TU) in Maguindanao, with Luis Chavit Singson leading the race. Even Maguindanao Governor Datu Andal Ampatuan Sr. figured in the controversy, after promising P1 million to each of the province’s 22 mayors who could deliver a 12-0 win for TU.

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THEY say politics is addition, but in some cases, it brought division to families.

In Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro, three brothers slugged it out in the recent polls. Incumbent Mayor Aristeo Atienza, who is on his last term, ran for vice mayor, and chose his nephew, Dr. Hubert Dolor, as his running mate.

But Aristeo’s two brothers, Victor and Francisco wanted to succeed him. Failing to get his support, the two decided to make a go for it. The Dolor-Atienza tandem won.

The island town proved to be too small for the big Atienza family. The Atienzas are a family of 12 siblings, with Aristeo as the sixth, Francisco as the eleventh, and Vic as the youngest.

“Matindi ang mga panaginip nilang maging mayor, kaya ayan, mayor sila hanggang sa panahon lang ng kampanya (They have dreams of becoming mayor, and they were, but only for the duration of the campaign),” he says.

Aristeo downplays the rift with his brothers, saying it is common for relatives to squabble for elective positions in a town made up of just a few families. “In politics, there are no permanent friends or enemies,” he says. Still, he is ruling out Sunday lunches with the whole family.

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AS the canvassing draws to a close, complaints of poll fraud pile up before the Commission on Elections (Comelec). Just yesterday, progressive party-list groups filed a case against the entire board of canvassers of Zamboanga Sibugay for the “unusually and incredibly huge number of votes” in favor of two “party-list fronts” of the administration.

In a seven-page complaint filed before the Commission on Elections (Comelec), party-list groups Bayan Muna, Gabriela, Anakpawis, Kabataan, and Suara Bangsamoro said they found glaring irregularities between the certificate of canvass (COC) and the statement of votes (SOV) in seven municipalities in Zamboanga Sibugay.

According to the group, votes were tampered with by surreptitiously inserting another digit to make the original entry bigger.

Read the complaint filed against the Board of Canvassers of Zamboanga Sibugay.

For example, in Kabasalan, the Cooperative-Natcco Network Party (Coop-Natcco) only got 208 votes in the municipal COC, but the figures increased to 2,089 in the SOV by municipality.

Another “administration-backed” party-list, United Movement Against Drugs (UNI-MAD), supposedly got only 60 votes in the COC of Kabasalan; in the SOV, the figures were changed to 3,600.

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IN 1986, then National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) chairman Jose Concepcion Jr. crisscrossed the country, talking to the families of Namfrel volunteers who had been killed while guarding the ballots.

There was the boy, also a Namfrel volunteer, who cried “Itay, Itay! (Father, Father!),” as his father’s coffin was slowly lowered to the ground.

There was a teacher in Mambusao, Capiz, who was shot in the back as he attempted to escape with ballots that he had wrapped in a Philippine flag.

Twenty years later, there is still a slight catch to Concepcion’s voice as he recalls how he embraced the man’s widow. Neither of them could speak.

“Somehow they could never forget the role that they played. Because it wasn’t us. Because Namfrel was the Bantay ng Bayan ng ating mga mamamayan (People’s Watch). It was their election, it was their victory.”

It was also in 1986 that a jubilant throng in Edsa hoisted Concepcion onto their shoulders as they chanted, “Namfrel, Namfrel.”

Namfrel’s credibility had come under a cloud of doubt when the PCIJ interviewed him last year for its multimedia presentation on 20 years of Edsa 1. Even then, Concepcion had already begun to speak of a new direction for the election watchdog: it would no longer conduct a parallel vote count, even as it continued to keep its eyes on the vote.

Listen to an excerpt of the podcast.

Language: English and Filipino
Length: 00:14:21
File size: 9.9 MB

Or listen to the full version.

ON May 14, 2007, around nine in the evening, a teacher in Occidental Mindoro was caught red-handed switching two bundles of ballots at Precinct 0003-A in Mamburao Central School.

Earlier, poll watcher Gaspar Bandoy allegedly saw de Jesus taking out a bundle of folded ballots from his drawer as the votes were being read, while another bundle remained inside. Bandoy then immediately called for the counting to be stopped. Bandoy said de Jesus refused to open his drawer and ordered the poll watcher to get out of the room. (Read Gaspar Bandoy’s affidavit.)

When Bandoy returned, he saw de Jesus taking the same bundle from the drawer, placed it in a brown envelope and shoved it inside his blue backpack kept under the table. Poll watchers then alerted the police.

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TODAY’S special elections in Lanao del Sur assume a particular significance as the voting results — with 96,229 votes at stake — will have a bearing on the last three contested seats in the senatorial race (see the latest tally), as well as on the standing of groups vying for party-list seats. Such a situation, many observers say, again opens the electoral exercise in the province to possibilities of cheating operations similar to the 2004 elections.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) had earlier declared a failure of elections in 13 municipalities in Lanao del Sur — Bayang, Binidayan, Butig, Kapai, Kapatagan, Lumba Bayabao, Lumbatan, Lumbayanague, Madalum, Marogong, Masiu, Pualas, and Sultan Dumalondong.

On May 14, poll officers refused to serve in the polls because of harassment from armed men believed to be aligned with warring political candidates. Armed goons reportedly roamed several towns, firing their guns, scaring people and election officials.

Locals blamed the lack of police and soldiers for the failure of elections. To address this, thousands of soldiers had been deployed to provide security for the elections today. Former Philippine National Police chief Arturo Lomibao and retired Major General Jovito Palparan are personally monitoring the security arrangements. (Palparan said he will also personally monitor the elections to protect the votes of his party-list group, Bantay.)

Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento, commissioner-in-charge of elections in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), also formed a special team of election officers for today’s polls. Locals however expect that cheating will occur, especially during the counting of ballots, where vote-padding and -shaving could be done.

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SUDDENLY, Namfrel’s much-vaunted speedy parallel tally of the votes has gone slow-mo.

Not so long ago, the organization otherwise known as the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections used to be way ahead of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) when it came to counting ballots. But as the sidebar to the latest piece in i Report’s election series observes, today the other way around. The mighty have fallen…asleep.

Actually, Namfrel has been suffering from one system breakdown to another in the last two weeks. Perhaps it’s nerves; after the fiasco of 2004 where its experiment with SMS went awfully awry, Namfrel can be forgiven for still being a bit jittery when it comes to using technology. Now, however, even some observers are developing tics just from watching its performance.

Read on at pcij.org.

CALL it the poll watching equivalent of a military carpet-bombing: election-monitoring groups have not only multiplied in number since 2004, they have now gone beyond conducting parallel tallies that were first made popular by the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) some two decades ago.

These days, several of the newer organizations say they will keep their eyes on election-related matters long after the canvassing of votes is over and long after all the winners in the recently concluded polls have been proclaimed.
With questions about the 2004 elections still unresolved, many people have welcomed the proliferation of poll monitors. And now that election cheats seemed to have gone really garapal (which can be translated to being thick-faced, but scandalously bold may be more like it), the presence of watchdogs has become even more crucial.

The latest piece in i Report’s current series on the elections gives the lowdown on some of the more prominent election monitoring groups and what they have been up to so far.

Read on at pcij.org.