Pinoy resilience made May polls possible despite gov’t failures — int’l observers

It was only because of the resilience of the Filipino people – teachers who acted as Board of Election Inspectors and voters – that the automated poll was made possible, an international observers mission that monitored the May 10 polls concluded. The mission noted, on the other hand, that the administration of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and its poll body failed to address election-related problems such as widespread intimidation, vote buying, corruption and violence, among others. In a report submitted Tuesday to Senator Francis Escudero, co-chairman of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on the Automated Elections System (JCOC-AES), the People’s International Observers Mission (PIOM) said that the recent elections were not peaceful or violence-free, fair or honest. “The People’s IOM considers the Comelec (Commission on Elections), Smartmatic and the Arroyo government accountable for the problems encountered in the May 10 elections," the 85-member mission from 11 countries said. Some members of the mission were caught in a crossfire in Tugaya, Lanao del Sur, on election day itself. The shootout was caught on video by independent multimedia group Kodao Productions and later broadcast on nationwide television. But what caught the PIOM members’ attention was the people – lining up under the sun or amid the heat for hours just to be able to cast their votes. The group also commended the teachers who were able to pull through the automated voting amid the lack of training to handle the machines. “With the many serious problems in the whole election process, we would like to add that it is only through the efforts of the people – the sacrifices made by the public school teachers and the resilience of voters – that the elections was made possible," the IOM said. ‘A sense of dignity’ The IOM refused to comment on the success or failure of the automated polls, saying they will leave it to the Filipino people to say. Yvon Alain Raoul from Canada, who monitored the polls in Abra, a province in northern Philippines with extensive warlord presence, said he would gladly come back to the country because “the Filipino people has given me a sense of what dignity is all about." “We have in our country (Canada) too many people who have lost the hope that a democratic process can be accomplished in its totality. So this kind of hope is something that we are gonna bring back with us," he said during a press conference after their discussion of their poll experience with Escudero. “I hope it is not an illusion. I hope it’s not going to be something which is going to fade away and I really hope that if you have democracy in this country, this is the best guarantee to assure that the whole process will complete itself and be useful," he added. The other members of the mission were from Australia, the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Hong Kong, France, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Argentina. The group were in the country from May 7 to 15, 2010, and monitored elections in selected areas of 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. Among the observations of the group were the sore lack of preparations for automation; general chaos and confusion in the voting process; lack of secrecy in the voting; clear violations in the campaigning; the prevalent practice of vote-buying; and numerous incidents of election-related violence. The group also mentioned the “systematic vilification campaign against senatorial candidates Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza and eight progressive party-list groups." It also noted that political dynasties and their armed militias still lord it over local politics. “The political and economic inequality creates vulnerability to intimidation and vote-buying," the group said. The group felt strongly against the heavy military and police presence in the communities, and within polling places as these contributed to or caused the climate of fear. Soldiers even harassed members of the mission, they said. IOM recommendations The People’s IOM recommended to the Comelec to: • Adopt a system more attuned to the Filipino culture while complying with international human rights standards on the right to political participation. • 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 • 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. Each precinct’s election returns should be posted online. • Validate the results of the elections through completing the process of manual audit. • Provide more technicians and improve on-site technical support. • Implement the law on campaigning. • Impose stricter rules for the conduct of poll watchers. • Remove the clustering of precincts. The group also called on the incoming administration to dismantle private armies and to put a stop to the militarization of villages. They said the security of the voting process should be ensured through a systematic and transparent process and not through the deployment of men with guns. Escudero to ‘reserve judgment’ Escudero, for his part, said he will wait for the more complete copy of the IOM’s report before he would give his conclusion. “Until after all pieces of evidence, and after all the random audit is conducted, personally, I will be reserving judgment in so far as this automated procedure and election is concerned," he said in a separate press conference. He added: “On the whole, because of the speed by which the results came in, I think on that score the Comelec should be commended. But on the issue of accuracy, we will get to know that in the coming days." The senator said the JCOC will compile all the reports that will be submitted to it and will leave the work of giving recommendations to the next Congress JCOC, because the term of the current JCOC will end on June 30. “We will make a summary of all the reports submitted without doing corresponding recommendations. We will leave it to the next JCOC to make the corresponding recommendations and after collating all of these data that are coming to us right now," he said. —JV, GMANews.TV