May 2010 Elections, Neither Fair nor Honest – Foreign Observers

Published on May 17, 2010

Some military troops’ campaign activities against progressive candidates included holding house-to-house visits, distributing flyers, and threatening those who are known supporters of progressive candidates.

“There were cases of intimidation and harassment coming from armed groups of candidates, landlords, and the military, thereby sowing fear, which infringed on the voters’ free will,” said the PIOM.

(Photo courtesy of PIOM Central Luzon Team / bulatlat.com)

“The heavy military and police presence in communities and within polling places has contributed to or has caused the climate of fear. Military men even harassed members of the PIOM. When asked about their presence at the polling centers, soldiers reportedly said they were there to protect the people against the New People’s Army (NPA),” said the PIOM.

In Tarlac a PIOM team reported that members of para-military group CAFGU (Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit) also contributed to the vilification campaign against the progressive candidates, to the point that its supporters could not openly campaign for them. Some supervisors of the Cojuangco-owned Central Azucarera de Tarlac were active members of CAFGU, reported the PIOM team that went to Tarlac.

In Abra, the PIOM team was asking about what and whose interest the United States’ Department of Homeland Security is serving by being there on May 10.

Compounding the widespread intimidation was the utter lack of privacy or secrecy of the votes. The foreign observers noted that the so-called secrecy folders were inadequate and too short. Voters were practically denied privacy in casting their votes, as poll watchers, ‘security,’ armed military men, and other unidentified persons or volunteers could easily hover, observe in the voting, take photos or videos of voters, and even interfere. Some PIOM groups reported cases when the BEIs or poll watchers of certain groups would scan the filled-up ballot before appearing to decide if they would feed it to the PCOS machine or file it.

What’s to Celebrate for May 10

If there were reasons to celebrate that the May 10 elections pushed through, it was certainly not because of the Comelec’s or the Smartmatic’s doing, but because of the proven resilience of the Filipino people. A member of the PIOM, Stefan Cristoff, was especially critical of the way the Arroyo administration has “privatized” the election process. PIOM noted that the Comelec has practically ceded to Smartmatic the running of the elections, with the Comelec referring and deferring to Smartmatic on many important questions affecting the running of the elections.

“By all reasonable standards, May 10 is not a democratic exercise, not honest, fair or orderly,” said Father Jose Dizon, convener of election watchdog Kontra-Daya.

“With the many serious problems in the whole election process, it is only through the efforts of the people – the sacrifices made by the public school teachers and the resilience of voters – that the election was made possible,” concluded the PIOM. (Bulatlat.com)

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2 Responses to “May 2010 Elections, Neither Fair nor Honest – Foreign Observers”

jay ybanez Says:
May 20th, 2010 at 10:44 am
i’m saddened that teamsatur and bayan muna has to jump too early in the bandwagon of people congratulating noynoy for his victory a day after villar conceded defeat. they could have waited for these issues to settle before coming out with congratulatory notes. at least they would not have appeared oblivious to, or worst tolerating, these issues now. with more serious charges of electronic fraud leveled at the supposed victors, it would be interesting how they could wriggle out of that maiden declaration.
Philippine post-election round-up No. 1 | 100ARAW.com Says:
May 20th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
[...] observers from 11 countries are unimpressed by the conduct elections and presented their findings to Sen. Chiz [...]