ROMY ELUSFA
COTABATO CITY—An election watchdog, which earlier pushed for the postponement of the election in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao to facilitate electoral reforms, has strongly suggested an automation in the coming political exercise if the voting pushes through in August.
The call for the automation of election was called by the Citizens Coalition for ARMM Electoral Reform (C-CARE), an election watchdog, following published reports of a plan to revert to manual voting the August 8 political exercise in the so-called “cheating capital in the Philippines.”
Earlier, it was reported that the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) was contemplating of reverting to manual voting the election in ARMM, citing deficiencies of the PCOS machines used in the last presidential election.
The Citizen’s CARE had wanted to move the voting in ARMM and synchronize it with the national elections to give the Comelec ample time to implement electoral reforms like the cleansing of the voters’ list in the region.
But if the government is bent on pursuing the ARMM election in August, the Citizen’s CARE said that the “matuwid na daan (right path) to do it is to still use the PCOS machines used in the last presidential elections.”
Frustrated that their earlier call for the postponement of the ARMM elections was unheeded, Jumda Sabaani, chair of C-CARE, said: “If the government could no longer buy a bit of time to institutionalize electoral reform before conducting any election in the autonomous region, then it should not even entertain reverting back to the manual voting.”
Sabaani said if ever some of the PCOS machines malfunctioned in the last Presidential election, “still the result of that political exercise was far better from any of the manual voting that we have had in the past. So, I could not understand why we should revert back to manual voting, especially in the ARMM, which everyone knows is the cheating capital in the Philippines.”
The C-CARE claimed that many Filipinos, “especially the residents of this so-called cheating capital of the country, have enliven hopes for meaningful change under the present administration, but if this government allows a reversal to manual election in the ARMM, that will simply make the pronouncement of taking the matuwid na daan a lip service—a moro-moro.”
“Let this set the record straight: We were for the postponement of the ARMM election because we know a lot of electoral reforms need to be set in place and it would be best for this government to see these reforms initially realized before any election could be again done in the country. For one, there is a need to clean the voters list in ARMM. But since government is entertaining to pursue with the election in August, the more that it should use the PCOS machines despite real defects that the machines have,” said Sabaani.
Sabaani’s group, which bragged of more than 20 member organizations in ARMM, reminded the government that “the scale of election fraud and violence in the ARMM remains high and requires citizen’s active vigilance to ensure transparent, credible, honest, safe and clean polls. But if government itself will allow reversal to manual election, all efforts of the people will be rendered futile.”
The Citizen’s CARE said that while manual election may cost lesser than an automated one, “the savings from the difference could not compensate for the fraud, manipulation, tampering of votes and even manufacturing election returns that we all know have always happen in ARMM.”
Sabaani also noted that an automated voting could save a lot of time for the entire election process, citing the fact that transporting election returns from many areas in ARMM could take even two days due to some villages’ inaccessibility to land transportation.
She stressed that “transporting of ballot boxes and election returns has already been proven very vulnerable to all sorts of election frauds and violence, hence, we could not really understand why government should even consider reverting to manual election in ARMM.”
The Board of Election Inspectors, in an automated election, need not extend time in manning polling places that actually exposes them all the more to fraud and violence,” Sabaani said.
She suggested for government to instead “immediately fix the defective machines, which they could have done a long time ago.”
She said that the Senate and the Comelec should instead “use all means to protect the integrity of votes of the electorate in ARMM. The lawmakers must appropriate and approved sufficient budget to allow the election body to purchase “much better and more reliable election machines.” ###
No comments:
Post a Comment