SHADING THE BALLOT. Marjorie Ann Teodoro fills up her ballot at the San Roque Elementary School in Marikina City on Monday (May 9, 2022). Teodoro is running for a congressional seat in the city’s District 1, which was vacated by Bayani Fernando who is running for Marikina mayor. (PNA photo by Joey O. Razon)
MANILA – The declaration of a failure of election in certain areas due to violent incidents is “not an option” for the Commission on Election (Comelec) unless it is really needed, an official said on Monday.
“Actually, we have declared that in our joint command conference that we will not encourage any failure of election. I stated it very clearly that failure of election is not an option. But we cannot avoid baka naman kailangan talaga (it might be really needed),” Comelec chairman Saidamen Pangarungan said in a press conference at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Pasay City.
He said the decision to declare a failure of election has to be made by the Commission en banc, should there be petition filed before them
“So far, I don’t see a huge area to declare a failure of the election. The whole time that we have been monitoring the security situation of the country. Ang nakita ko lang na maaaring may problema ay yung sa Malabang na may isang namatay (The only thing I saw that could be a problem was the one in Malabang wherein there is one dead),” Pangarungan said, noting that Comelec is also looking to the alleged filling up of ballots of the private armed groups belonging to the local candidates in the area.
Pangarungan said there is no serious threat that has been monitored so far.
He said the private armed groups were more posing threat than the highly organized terrorist groups in the country such as New People’s Army, Abu Sayyaf communist terrorist groups, Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom fighters, or the Maute group.
“Hindi natin nakita yung threat ng violent acts nitong malalaking grupo nato (We haven’t seen any threat of violent acts from these larger groups), which are considerably smaller groups,” he added. (PNA)
