2010 Elections: Four G’s during Abra polls

By JENNY S. DE VENECIA
Bulatlat.com

MANILA – Impervious to the presence of foreign observers in their area, military forces sowed fear and intimidation to the people of Abra, including a delegate from the People’s International Observers Mission (PIOM), with their guns and apparent attendance during the Election Day.

David Crotty, an Australian delegate of PIOM, was a victim of harassment committed by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) while observing the elections in Malibcong, Abra. “Because there was no explanation why it was happening, [referring to the questioning he was subjected to] it felt like harassment and it did feel like intimidation,” Crotty said to Bulatlat, as he recalled the incident.

According to him, he mistakenly approached an “ordinary” soldier to take a photo of him, instead of approaching the commanding officer first, whom he did not know who at that time. “He wasn’t smiling and he wasn’t happy,” he added.

Turning his back to return to their group, he was then faced by the commanding officer of the unit. “I wanted to smooth things over,” Crotty said. He talked to the commanding officer to explain why he went over to where the soldiers were staying. The fully-armed soldiers were stationed 50 meters away from a polling precinct.

By then, the officer was already asking questions that made Crotty uneasy. “There was no good humor in it,” he said describing the questioning. Beside was another man taking photos of him without his permission. “I went up and explained, ‘here’s my identification and here’s the group to which I’m associated with,’” he told the “intelligence” officer after talking to the commanding officer.

Despite being aware of the presence of the other foreign observers, the military still intimidated Crotty. “Just the previous day, we’d met a lieutenant colonel who was their commanding officer for the entire Abra area,” Crotty said. According to him, the lieutenant colonel signed a paper stating that the PIOM will be observing the elections.

Adding to the fear-filled atmosphere, the commanding officer asked who the leader of the team was. The Filipino facilitator of the team instead showed the signed letter to the soldiers. According to Crotty, the military wanted to know who their local contact was. “They also put pressure on her,” he said.

The Filipino facilitator, who Crotty refused to name for her security, refused to identify their local contact. “We were seriously worried that the local contact there would be subjected to harassment and maybe worse,” he added.

Crotty, no stranger to Abra, was surprised by the changes in the place from his first visit as a tourist back in 2004 when Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was running for presidency. “I had no recollection of any violence, and that was just before the Arroyo election,” he recalled. “Back in 2004, I wasn’t there on election eve … maybe it was the same back then, I don’t know. But it was different the way I remember it,” he added.

Though aware of the political situation in the country, he nevertheless volunteered for the PIOM 2010. “I knew there’s risk involved,” he told Bulatlat. “It wasn’t something I’ve thought about before but when I received that e-mail I thought, yeah that’s something I’d really like to do,” he also said.

“I knew Abra was very violent, but that is what makes it more important to go there,” Crotty said. Marked as the “killing fields of the North,” Abra was placed under the control of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) because of the rampant political violence in the area especially during elections.

Being placed under Comelec control means that the area would be supervised by a special task force composed of a Comelec commissioner and the highest- ranking officers of both AFP and the Philippine National Police (PNP).

The province was also declared under Comelec control during the 2007 elections since 16 percent of poll-related problems during that election period occurred in this area.

According to Crotty, “Where the violence is, that’s where the real problems are.” He believes that having international observers in the election ‘hotspots’ would alleviate the violence “a little bit.” “No one wants to be accused of doing the wrong thing,” he added.

Guns and Goons

Since under Comelec control, heavily armed soldiers were deployed in the province to secure the area on election day. Their looming presence however added to the tension in the area.

Soldiers and armed groups roving around the polling precincts sowed fear among the voters. In addition, cases of harassments from the military were also documented by the PIOM.

Posters warning people not to vote for Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza were also given out by the military. The military accused the two of being members of New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CCP).

The actual polling day violence in the area is less compared to the 2004 and 2007 elections, though the military presence is relatively higher this year, according to the findings of the PIOM.

Due to political killings trailing the actual voting day, Abra Mayors Edwin Crisologo and Dominic Valera of Bangued filed a formal petition requesting that the province be placed under Comelec control. Comelec granted the request on the evening of May 8, Saturday.

Gold and Glitches

Surrounding the elections were glitches in the Automated Elections System (AES) and the prevalent vote buying before and during the actual voting day.

There were slow-paced voting lines, missing voters’ names on the official list, and technical problems that the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines encountered. The voters endured the blistering heat outside the polling precincts as they wait in line to cast their votes.

Inside the polling precincts were unauthorized persons who invaded the privacy of voters and the secrecy of their votes. Several photos of poll watchers directly influencing voters to vote for a certain candidate were taken by the PIOM Abra team. They however, have been prevented by the Board of Elections Inspectors (BEI) to go near any voters.

The team also confirmed cases of vote buying ranging from P500 to P5, 000 (U$ 11 to $111). Packs of rice and groceries were also given out house-to-house in exchange for the people’s vote. Most of these cases happened the night before the elections.

The over-all observation of the PIOM boiled down into one conclusion: the 2010 elections were neither fair nor honest. The success lied on the tolerance of the voters to be able to participate in the national elections. (Bulatlat.com)