Dj Vu 2004
Kontra Daya finds significant the reports of Maguindanao province delivering a 12-0 sweep for administration senatorial candidates. There are incoming reports that Sulu province is also poised to deliver a 12-0 sweep for Team Unity. Such an overnight sweep, which the government attributes to overwhelming popular support for the administration, simply strains credulity. Prior to the elections, when surveys showed the Opposition winning a sizeable majority of the votes, the Arroyo government had asked local officials to deliver an administration sweep in exchange for continued financial support from Malacaang. The Executive Secretary himself implied such a trade-off. Attempts to secure 12-0 results for TU have then been replicated in areas where local officials are loyal to the administration. In Bohol, for example, a province whose governor campaigned for charter change, the COMELEC reported that several towns registered a 12-0 sweep for the administration.
These developments indicate an unconvincing and improbable deviation from the national trend largely supporting the Opposition, as reported in pre-election surveys, the post-election media counts, exit polls, and the accredited NAMFREL count. We are disturbed that such unexplained TU sweeps are declared alongside the failure of elections, and the resulting postponement of special elections in 18 Mindanao towns to a date in late May.
Violence is often cited as the reason for the failure of elections in Mindanao. Kontra Daya believes that the violent and chaotic situation in key areas such as Lanao del Sur is being exploited by operators of electoral fraud.
We are concerned that the delay in Mindanao elections is programmed to allow extra time for special operators to pad votes and provide a sweep for all administration candidates in Mindanao, in the hope of increasing their electoral chances in the national count. It is also worth noting that prior to May 14, observers and the media have noted the sharp increase in registered voters in several areas in Mindanao, particularly in the same areas where wholesale vote-rigging was done in 2004.
The COMELEC has not assuaged serious and legitimate concerns by various groups regarding fraud in Mindanao. The continued presence of election officers, who had been implicated in the 2004 Hello Garci election fraud, does not help boost the credibility of the elections in the region and implies complicity to commit fraud on the part of the COMELEC.
Reports coming in suggest that election results in some areas in the ARMM were predetermined to favor the administration. Very disturbing are the reports of manufactured, doctored or otherwise questionable Election Returns proliferating in the region. At the very least, such news should be investigated, particularly since neither the Opposition nor accredited watchdogs like NAMFREL are being given their rightful copies of the returns by authorities in these regions, as they should be under the law.
Another immediate concern for Kontra Daya is the case of senatorial candidate Alan Peter Cayetano who is turning out to be a victim of electoral sabotage courtesy of the COMELEC. The Commissions failure to immediately and satisfactorily resolve the disqualification of obvious nuisance candidate Pepito Cayetano is taking its toll on the vote count of Alan C. COMELECs confusing and flip-flopping policy to stray or not to stray the Cayetano-only ballots gives the impression that the poll body has set up Alan C. as an easy target of legalized vote-shaving.
Kontra Daya notes with great alarm the reports of systematic vote-shaving aimed at the Opposition and the militant partylist groups. As of the latest count, several Opposition candidates are likely targets of dagdag-bawas. These include Alan Cayetano, Antonio Trillanes and Koko Pimentel. The likelihood of vote-shaving is very real and has been reported by the media and by poll watchers of the Opposition and partylist groups.
At the National Board of Canvassers, it was recently discovered that figures on the Statement of Votes from Zambales failed to match those of the Certificates of Canvass by as much as 100,000 votes. The victims of this vote-shaving were GO candidates Alan Cayetano and Francis Escudero. COMELEC reported that the votes were later on restored.
From incoming field and media reports, we can say that there is an emerging trend of fraud being committed in certain areas and that this fraud obviously favors the administration by depriving votes for the Opposition and militant partylist groups.
2007 Elections
