Operators' exposé: 5 party-list groups buy votes in Lanao del Sur

Newsbreak: Marawi City — Five party-list groups have struck deals with cheating operators for their victory in Lanao del Sur’s special elections held Saturday. Newsbreak learned this from two operators who agreed to be interviewed on condition that they are not identified. The two said that at least three party-list groups negotiated with operators for rigged votes. Two of these groups are identified with Muslim clans while the other one has one of its nominees a relative of a Lanao del Sur provincial executive. Competition had turned stiff, these sources said, because of two already favored party-list groups: Biyaheng Pinoy and Yacap. Biyaheng Pinoy has its top nominee the brother of elections commission chair Benjamin Abalos, while Yacap has been tagged as one of the groups being backed by the administration. Rey Sumalipao, the election officer for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (which includes Lanao del Sur) until shortly after the May 14 elections, was said to have directly ordered local poll officers here to help Yacap win, according to the two cheating operators. Sumalipao has denied the allegation. “That’s absolutely not true. I have nothing to do with it [Yacap]. I have already been taken out of the region and have no influence there," Sumalipao told Newsbreak. Based on negotiations with the election officers, a certain percentage of the votes was committed to Biyaheng Pinoy and Yacap, “leaving the crumbs" to the syndicate. As explained by the operators, in a town of 5,000 registered voters, for instance, 1,500 votes may have been committed to Biyaheng Pinoy and another 1,500 to Yacap. The balance of 2,000 votes are the ones up for sale, they said. Done deal? Meanwhile, operators for four senatorial candidates—three from Team Unity and one from the Genuine Opposition—moved only recently to buy votes for their clients, the two sources said. We are withholding the names of these candidates. The operators disclosed that they demanded a 50-percent downpayment from candidates who wanted to buy votes. The rate had risen to P50 per vote for the party-list race and P10 per vote for the senatorial race. If these operators are to be believed, they already know the results of the just-concluded special elections in the province. Almost a hundred thousand votes are at stake, enough to topple a senatorial bet and increase the chances of a party-list group to get at least one seat or strengthen its bid for the top 1 position (a maximum three seats). The operators admitted that bids went up by the hour as May 26 neared. It’s a brisk business—despite the presence of watchdogs in the province. In fact, Newsbreak’s interview with one of the poll operators was interrupted several times as election officers called successively to confirm sealed deals. For the convenience of everyone, money is wired. “Everybody’s engaged," one of the poll operators said, referring to his fellow cheats. “You have to keep watch because before you know it, somebody has already raised the price." Days before the special elections, no one had offered any job orders. “We thought they were not interested," the same operator said. They were pleased to find out that they were wrong. The relatively low retail price, they said, is offset by bulk orders. “If you buy 50,000 votes, that would cost you half a million pesos." Because of their deal’s shady nature, operators and election officers connive with each other and operate on the basis of trust. “If they [election officers] deliver, we give them the balance. It’s been tried and tested," said one of the operators. The election officers are able to deliver because they claim to have in their possession genuine but blank municipal certificates of canvass for the senatorial and party-list races. The operators said Lanao del Sur voters generally do not fill up the senatorial and party-list slots since they are indifferent to these contests. “They are more concerned with the local races," the operators said. Locals for local bets Former Mindanao State University vice-president Salipada Tamano confirmed that except in urban areas like Marawi city, many voters here ignore national contests. “The national level is only secondary to them. The thinking is that these politicians are based in Manila, anyway." Newsbreak observed this during yesterday’s special elections. Voters skipped the slots for the senatorial and party-list, and quickly proceeded to vote for their local candidates. This low fill-up rate provides the opening for the manipulation of the election returns (ERs) at the national level, as well as in the municipal certificate of canvass, the operators explained. As watchers of local candidates are focused on the local contests, they usually harass the Board of Election Inspectors to first count the votes cast for the local race. To avoid tension, the BEIs give in. In the meantime, counting in the national level is set aside, leaving empty tally marks in the precinct ERs. The absence of watchers in the national races facilitates this set-up, making it easier for the syndicate of election officers to carry out their scheme. Meticulous election officers fill up the blank slots reserved for the national race in the ballots and transfer the manipulated votes to the ERs. The lazier ones just manipulate the municipal certificate of canvass (COC). The operators said that unlike before when only the municipal COC was manipulated, some election officers have resorted to manipulating the ERs to avoid detection by the more vigilant watchers. “These watchers in the national level are not aware that the ERs they are asking for are already manipulated." Slow canvass The Provincial Board of Canvassers has so far received only nine municipal COCs from the towns in Lanao del Sur where elections were not declared a failure. Only five of those COCs have been canvassed as of this writing. The operators said some election officers were still in the process of forging the ERs, which explains the delay in the submission of the municipal canvass not covered by the May 26 special elections. This claim is bolstered by the fact that volunteers of the National Citizen’s Movement for Free Elections have only received ERs in 17 of the 30 towns comprising Lanao del Sur. As an accredited watchdog, Namfrel is supposed to get the sixth copy of the ERs. Indeed, the disclosures made by these operators to Newsbreak would be proven true, or false, in the coming days. - Newsbreak