MANILA (Updated 7:23 p.m.) — Despite complaints of long queues, missing names, and defective poll count machines, police and military forces considered Monday’s national and local elections as the “most peaceful.”
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) pegged voter’s turnout at 80 to 85 percent despite problems encountered during the voting.
Polling precincts, supposed to close by 7 p.m., would still accommodate voters within the 30-meter radius by the end of voting time.
?Monday’s poll was the most peaceful elections so far in our history,” said Army Colonel Ricardo Nepomuceno.
Philippine National Police (PNP) spokesman Leonardo Espina also described the 2010 elections as a lot peaceful compared to similar exercises in 2007 and 2004.
Espina said while this is partly due to the automation, it was also borne out of long drawn preparations of the country?s security forces. He cited moves to control the movement of illegal firearms and neutralization of private armed groups.
For the first time in the country?s history, optical scanning machines will count votes in 76,000 precincts. A software glitch discovered a week ago nearly derailed the vote, but was fixed at the last minute.
Still, some machines malfunctioned in the tropical humidity.
In the past, manual counts in the world’s second-biggest archipelago delayed results for weeks and were prone to fraud. Officials are now expecting early tallies just hours after polls close.
Election Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said about 300 out of 76,000 machines had problems but that most already were replaced, adding that the problem was “not as widespread as it’s made to appear.”
Former election commission chairman Christian Monsod said the long lines of voters represented “a celebration of democracy.” Elections often are marred by violence, and the latest vote has been no different.
At least seven people were killed and eight wounded Monday, in addition to about 30 people gunned down in the last three months in violence tied to the election, police said.
A Marine and a civilian acting as a congressional candidate’s bodyguards were killed in a clash outside a police station in Bacoor town in Cavite province.
Troops and gunmen exchanged fire in Maguindanao province, where 57 people were massacred in the country’s worst election-related attack last year, said army Lt. Gen. Raymundo Ferrer. Two civilians also were killed in fighting between armed followers of rival candidates for vice mayor, Ferrer said.
At Comelec headquarters, spokesman James Jimenez on Monday identified several areas where there are recommendations for failure of elections.
In a press briefing, Jimenez said there is a possibility of Comelec declaring a total failure of elections in the municipalities of Masiu, Lumba Bayabao, Lumba Kaunayan and Tubaran, all in Lanao del Sur.
Jimenez said Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) in these municipalities failed to arrive, which deferred the conduct of elections there.
?The reason for no appearance of the BEI however has not yet been identified by the Comelec,? he added.
There are also three precincts in Lanao del Sur where automated machines have failed, namely Marogong, Bayang, and Sultan Dumagondong. The reason for the failure has not been determined yet.
Jimenez meanwhile said there will surely be failure of elections in Gimbal, Iloilo and Pagsanjan, Samar due to switching of ballots in these areas.
?Ballots in Gimbal were inadvertently sent to Samar and the ballots in Samar were sent to Gimbal so basically there was switching of the ballots that occurred there, so failure of elections will be declared in those places.?
A Marine soldier was wounded in an ambush while securing the transport of official ballots of Sumisip town in Basilan province.
The incident caused the delay of the conduct of voting in the town of Sumisip. The voting was only able to start around 10 a.m.
Jimenez also said they are not yet certain how massive the failure of elections is in these areas and how many voters are affected.
He further said rescheduling of elections is normally done as soon as the reason for the failure disappears. ?Two to three days but we are not expecting 30 days as well.?
?I am just speaking on the top of my head, it seems there is more violence now than in previous elections, certainly the quality of violence has gotten worse, open hostilities in some places,? he said.
?I would like to say that politicians know they cannot cheat anymore,? Jimenez replied when asked why more violence was reported today than in previous elections. (JMR/Jill Beltran/Bong Garcia/Sunnex)
