On voting and poll watching: Citizen vigilance key to credible elections (Sabong News)

Voting in an election is the most important civic duty of a citizen.  When citizens cast their ballots on election day, they exercise their sovereign right. The Philippine Constitution declares: “The Philippines is a democratic and republican state.  Sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them.” Aside from voting, serving as a poll watcher is another important task.  Recall that in the 1986 snap election, thousands of citizens performed poll watching duties.  My wife and I volunteered to serve as poll watchers in the precinct in Araullo High School where we cast our votes.  We witnessed the entire voting process until the closing of balloting.  We accompanied the teacher who served as chairperson of the precinct election committee in delivering the ballot box to the Manila Comelec office along España street.   This scene was replicated in tens of thousands of voting centers nationwide.  Citizen volunteers joined teachers in protecting ballot boxes and in resisting disruptive incidents during the counting and transfer of ballot boxes to Comelec offices and canvassing venues.   Recall, too, that 35 computer specialists from the government’s National Computer Center walked out of the national tabulation center at the Philippine International Convention Center.  They protested that the election results being reported by the Comelec to the media were different from the actual tally of votes that they could monitor directly from their computer keyboards. The confluence of events triggered by the apparent irregularities in the counting of votes sparked the triumph of People Power at EDSA.  The constitutional commission appointed by President Corazon Aquino prepared a new Constitution that was approved by the people in a plebiscite in 1987. When President Aquino turned over the reins of power to her successor Fidel Ramos on June 30, 1992, it marked the first peaceful transfer of power in 27 years.  It was in 1965 when Ferdinand Marcos succeeded Diosdado Macapagal.  After Marcos was reelected in 1969, he declared martial law in 1972 and stayed in office until the night of Feb. 25, 1986 when the US Air Force transported him and his family first to Guam then to Hawaii on forced exile. It is in this context that a renewed call is being made for volunteer poll watchers — especially in light of recent developments.   An unexpected report surfaced during last week’s hearing of the Senate committee on electoral reforms headed by Senator Imee Marcos.  The Manila Bulletin was invited to attend the virtual hearing to shed light on its news report last January on the apparent breach of election data security.  During the hearing, information technology specialists who are serving as resource persons of the joint congressional oversight committee on electoral reforms, reported that for the past few weeks, no observers have been allowed at the printing of ballots in the National Printing Office (NPO). A Comelec lawyer told the committee that this arose from “Covid restrictions.” In February, Metro Manila was under Alert Level 2; this was eased to Alert Level 1 starting on March 1.  This prompted Senator Aquilino ‘Koko’ Pimentel to comment that “even under Alert Level 10, the proceedings should still be monitored” as this is mandated by law.   In a press conference, election lawyer Romulo Macalintal pointed out that according to Section 187 of the Omnibus Election Code (OEC), the Comelec is directed to allow representatives of political parties and candidates to observe “proceedings of the committee on the printing of official ballots and election returns, file objections, if any, and witness the printing and distribution of the ballots and the returns and guard the premises of the printer.” Relatedly, Section 189 of the OEC gives the dominant majority and minority parties the right to send their watchers who “shall verify the contents of the boxes containing the shipment of official ballots, election returns and sample official ballots received by the treasurers.”  Violation of Section 189 of the OEC is an election offense under Section 262 of the OEC. Printing the ballots without the benefit of observers and watchers as mandated by law violates the constitutional rights to due process, Other participants in the Senate hearing said that even if physical presence was not allowed, Comelec could still live-stream the ballot printing process and comply with the law’s mandate on observance of transparency. As this column was being written, the Comelec announced that henceforth, observers would be allowed to observe the printing of the remaining ballots, estimated to be around 25 percent of the total.  Newly appointed Comelec Chairman Saidamen Pangarungan was quoted in news reports thus: “This is part of our program for complete transparency, subject only to the limitation that we will not compromise the security of the ballot(s) and configuration of the SD cards.” Comelec Commissioner George Garcia also said that qualified observers would be allowed to “check random ballots and see whether (these) would be recognized by the vote-counting machines.” According to poll watch groups, on election day itself poll watchers are needed at the precincts to preclude the possible printing of predetermined results and election returns through the tampering of flashcards. There should be random manual audits after the close of voting to ensure that election returns have not been tampered.  Volunteer poll watchers could also take pictures of election returns so that these could be compared to the election returns used in the tallying of votes.   “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”  Freedom loving citizens must be willing to pay this price.