Akbayan recommends poll body to issue updated timeline and continuity plan.
Akbayan Party-list asked the Comelec to resolve numerous and unresolved setbacks in the planned automation elections this May 10.
In a press conference on Thursday at the Max’s restaurant inside the Quezon Memorial Circle, Akbayan Party-list Representative Walden Bello said the emergence of multiple and complex hurdles prove to be very alarming especially as many of the said hurdles fundamentally undermines the conduct of the elections.
Bello identified major problems that the COMELEC has encountered such as the delay in the delivery of all PCOS machines, to date, only 5000 out of 82,000 machines have landed on Philippine shores; voters education has been lagging, with 71% of the nation knowing little or nothing at all of the Automated Election procedure; little has been accomplished of the planned training for Board of Election Inspectors; the source code pending individual stakeholders and groups’ review.
“When the success of the automated elections depend on the people’s trust in the entire system that will operate it, and with COMELEC unable to assuage the people’s fears, and instead, weekly, they are treated to an array of electoral problems that seems to have no end, the elections is a train-wreck waiting to happen,” Bello, also Akbayan’s standard bearer in the coming polls, said.
For his part, Akbayan Party-list Legal Counsel Ibarra Gutierrez said the automation was pursued without considering that many of the electoral laws are still based on the manual election system.
“COMELEC has yet to identify the parts and/or sections of the Omnibus Election Code that needs to be amended,” Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez, also the Director of the UP Institute for Human Rights, also said existing electoral laws mainly refer to manual elections making the process lacking in legal cohesion, to say the least.
“The COMELEC is spread too thinly, trying to sort out technical dilemmas, forgetting the legal loopholes, and leaving the people blind to all the processes,” Atty. Gutierrez added.
According to Bello and Gutierrez, the COMELEC must immediately release a timeline for automated elections preparations, as well as a continuity plan.
“What is the new over-all schedule for all the 79 days left before elections? When will all the PCOS machines arrive and the program be installed? When will the nationwide teachers’ training commence and finish? When will they start identifying all possible problematic scenarios for elections and plot out definite, feasible solutions?”
They also put forward the following questions:
“The only satisfactory answer COMELEC may provide is by immediately presenting to the public their updated timeline and a comprehensive continuity plan,” Bello demanded of the COMELEC.
“We want to defend and protect the people’s right to suffrage and ensure the peaceful and orderly conduct of elections,” Gutierrez said. “As of the moment, there’s no such thing as an issue too small in such a crucial transition from manual to automated elections.”
Bello and Gutierrez said that Akbayan is willing to work with the COMELEC to ensure the success of the country’s first-ever national automated election.
“We believe in the principles behind automation, that is to make the election process more efficient and more reflective of the people’s democratic sentiments while preventing institutionalized fraud,” they said.
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