(File photo)
MANILA – Malacañang on Thursday said it will leave it up to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to prove that there are no irregularities in the May 9 national and local elections.
Acting presidential spokesperson and Communications Secretary Martin Andanar made this remark after the International Observer Mission (IOM) of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) said the recent polls “were not free and fair.”
Andanar echoed the remark made by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, saying he believed there was no cheating or other voting irregularities in the recent polls.
“We reiterate what President Rodrigo Roa Duterte said during his May 11, 2022 Talk to the People Address that there are no voting irregularities. Let us respect the outcome of the election and give chance to the winning candidates to fulfill their campaign platform,” he said.
He said the Palace will allow Comelec to respond to the IOM’s allegations.
“...To dispel doubts of some quarters such as the Philippine Election 2022 International Observer Mission, which has been quoted as saying ‘the May 9 election did not meet the standard of free and fair’ we leave the matter to the Commission on Elections,” he added.
The IOM earlier said it placed observers on the ground from the first week of April to document the unfolding campaign, the vote and the aftermath in Central Luzon, National Capital Region (NCR), Southern Luzon, Central Visayas, Western Visayas, and Mindanao.
IOM Commissioner and Belgian Parliamentarian Séverine De Laveleye said the outcome of the polls “suggests a continued drift towards repression, state impunity and state terror”.
“These Philippine National Elections 2022 were not free and fair. They were marred by a higher level of failure of the electronic voting system than ever before, along with rampant vote-buying, disturbing levels of state and military orchestrated red-tagging of candidates and parties including numerous incidents of deadly violence,” De Laveleye said.
De Laveleye claimed voters were denied access to reliable information, access to the voting places without intimidation, and a credible vote counting system.
The IOM also reported election-related violations of human rights from March 15, noting the first political killings related to the elections took place in Sorsogon, Bicol Region, on January 15.
Nearly 1,900 vote-counting machines (VCMs) across the country malfunctioned on May 9. Some glitches were resolved on site while other VCMs needed to be replaced.
These glitches delayed the conduct of this year’s polls with many voters still in line to cast their votes past 7 p.m., when polling precincts were supposed to close.
Last week, Comelec acting spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco said the poll body can “proudly state” that no cheating happened in the conduct of the 2022 polls.
Laudiangco also cited the manual validation being conducted by poll watchdog Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting which recorded a 100 percent match rate between physical election returns (ERs) and electronically transmitted results in the encoded ERs. (PNA)
