Filipinos witnessed a new page in the Philippines’ history following the successful completion of the country’s first automated election on Monday amid technical problems and reported cases of violence nationwide.
Even before polling stations officially opened at 7 a.m., some of the 50 million registered voters have already started forming queues at the 76,000 precincts nationwide, ignoring the scorching heat caused by the El Nino dry spell.
The Commission on Election (Comelec) had hoped to entice at least 85 percent of the registered voters to participate in this year’s election.
As of press time, the Comelec is already counting the ballots as the 90 million Filipinos eagerly await the results.
While things went generally well in most parts of the country, the same problems that hounded Philippines’ past elections were still present on Monday. Birth pains caused by the vote-counting machines were also experienced delays, prompting the Comelec to extend voting hours by another hour to 7 p.m.
“So far, the election has been peaceful and successful. We have already expected violence to erupt in certain parts of the country especially in provinces that are traditionally torn by (these disturbances),” Earl Parreno, a political analyst at the Institute for Political and Electoral Reforms, said in an interview.
Vote buying remains to be a persistent problem despite the country’s switch to optical scanning machines from the manual method meant to reduce the risk of cheating. Envelopes containing money were seen in some of the polling stations as candidates attempt to make a last-minute influence in voters’ decision.
Cases of election-related violence were also reported, especially in the war-torn provinces of Mindanao in Southern Philippines where leftists have been harassing both the military and the civilians.
Grenades exploding, unidentified armed men opening fire at a poll station and government troops exchanging fire with gunmen were just among the cases reported in the hot spot southern Maguindanao, the same province where 57 people were brutally murdered in infamous political massacre on Nov. 23 of last year.
Herbert Yambing, chief of the armed forces and national police Joint Security Coordinating Center, said the attacks were seemingly initiated to scare away voters from Monday’s polling as they were done at secluded sections of the towns.
According to police sources, at least nine people died and 12 others were injured in about 37 election-related violent incidents throughout the country as the Filipino people cast their votes for the presidential and local elections.
“So far, this has been the most peaceful (election) if we will compare it to the previous elections…We hope this would hold until tonight and throughout until the counting (of the votes) is over,” Armed Forces of Philippine Task Force spokesman Ricardo Nepomuceno said.
Around mid-Monday afternoon, Comelec has already recommended a failure of election to be declared in nine towns — situated in Lanao del Sur and Basilan — in Mindanao while election has been declared to have failed in two towns in Central Philippines.
Disenfranchisement among voters were also heavy, according to the Center for People Empowerment in Governance, which puts the blame on the malfunctioning of the precinct count optical scan ( PCOS) machines that had caused severe delays in some polling precincts.
Other problems, like mix-up in the delivery of ballots, long queues due to slow voting, ballot feeding jams and generally, ill- trained members of the Board of Election Inspectors, have also irritated some voters who abandoned voting altogether.
Despite the setbacks, Filipinos can no longer do anything but wait the results of Philippines’ first automated election which will seal the country’s fate in the next six years.
Preliminary results are expected to be released Monday night, significantly faster than the manual vote counting done in the past and which usually takes weeks and sometimes months before results come out.
Survey results have shown Liberal Party standard-bearer Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III to be Filipinos’ favorite, followed by actor-turned-politician Joseph “Erap” Ejercito Estrada and Nacionalista Party standard-bearer Manuel “Manny” Villar.
“I ran a good campaign and is prepared whether I win or lose,” Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro, administration candidate, said.
Teodoro and his first cousin Aquino voted in their home province in Northern Philippines while Villar and Estrada voted in their bailiwick in Metro Manila.
While things went smoothly for Teodoro, Villar and Estrada who finished the entire process in less than 15 minutes, Aquino meanwhile had to wait for more than four hours before he was able to cast his vote following technical glitches.
“This election is crucial because Filipinos are hoping that ( the Philippines) will (finally) have credible, acceptable election results now that (it) has switched to the PCOS machines. Although technical problems were reported, the theory is that if we lessen human intervention, chances of manipulating the results will be ( slimmer),” Parreno said.
Election Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal had reported more than 300 defective machines nationwide, which Parreno said remains “manageable” since there are 76,000 PCOS machines deployed nationwide and 6,000 machines are on standby.
Whoever will win this year’s election will face myriad of issues from insurgency problems that have hindered economic growth in southern Philippines and certain areas in Luzon to addressing deeply-entrenched corruption and red tapes in various government bodies that have caused massive distrust among Filipinos.
