Same problems dog barangay polls

Voters complain about long lines, missing names

MANILA, Philippines—Peaceful and orderly but with the same old problems.

Although no major election-related violent incidents were reported during Monday’s conduct of the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections in Metro Manila, the usual complaints were aired by voters.

These ranged from missing names on voters’ list, the long lines at polling precincts, flying voters and vote-buying.

In a celebration of Filipinos’ enduring sense of community, voters turned out in full force at Epifanio de los Santos Elementary School (Edses) in Manila.

It was an electoral exercise marked less by politics than neighborly connections as residents young and old picked their new barangay leaders inside the school, which hosted one of the three largest voting populations in the city.

As soon as the polls opened at 7 a.m., a steady stream of voters flowed into Edses, filling lobbies, classrooms and the covered court by midday. They came in droves, but mostly by families: couples with babies in strollers, young men escorting their elderly grandparents and teenagers with their mothers or fathers.

“In this election, everyone knows everybody else. It’s a more personal election,” said the school principal Violeta de los Santos. “There’s more accessibility because they’re all neighbors.”

Relevant force

She said the huge turnout showed that the barangay and the SK remained a relevant force in the lives of the citizens.

“People are going to vote for the people who they’re going to turn to when they need help,” she told the Inquirer in an interview. Most problems in the community, De los Santos noted, “are being solved at the barangay level.”

Arnie Salandanan said he was torn between two barangay chairman candidates, both of whom were his friends.

“It’s so hard to choose because they’re both close friends of mine. I ended up choosing the candidate whose family background I was more familiar with,” the engineer said.

Salandanan said the “traditional way” was to vote for the candidate one knew or was related to, but he hoped one day, Filipinos would choose their leaders based on their qualifications.

He said the election in his village, Barangay 687, was an almost intimate affair with only 700 registered voters. “I met a lot of my neighbors when I voted,” he said, adding that it took him less than a minute to cast his vote.

Good turnout

Chief Inspector Roland Aznar, leader of the seven-man team deployed by the Manila Police District to the Edses campus, observed that the turnout appeared to be the same as that of the national elections in May.

“As many people who came last May are here today,” he said.

Edses played host to 31 barangays, 28,000 registered voters and 99 clustered precincts.

Voting was generally orderly although missing names remained a problem for a number of voters.

“We always tell the voters if they can’t find their name in the room, look next door. Because of the clustering of precincts, most voters get confused because their names aren’t in the precincts where they voted in the past,” Delos Santos said.

The principal said they hoped to begin the counting of votes at 3 p.m. and begin canvassing at 6 p.m. Results should be known within an hour, she said.

At another school in the city, Ramon Avancena High School on Nepomuceno Street in San Miguel, Normina Salim claimed that the list of voters posted outside the polling precincts for Barangay 383 Zone 39 was different from the one in the hands of teachers acting as election officers.

Missing pages

The list maintained by the teachers, she claimed, lacked several pages.

Because her name was on one of the missing pages, Salim was not allowed to vote although she had a voter’s identification card.

Another voter, William Daniel, complained that he had been turned away at his polling precinct in Araullo High School after the election officers found out that someone had already voted in his stead.

The election officers said that the other voter had presented a valid ID card in Daniel’s name so his explanation that he was the real William Daniel fell on deaf ears.

At the Baseco Compound in Tondo, the voting process in one of the area’s most populated barangays proceeded quite smoothly, a change from the usual chaotic scene every election day. A total of 19,510 voters trooped to the Baseco Elementary School to cast their ballots, patiently lining up while waiting for their turn at the polling precincts.

On the other hand, a lot of voters in Caloocan City were dismayed when they found out that they had been disenfranchised although they were able to vote during the May elections.

System error

The city election officer said the problem was due to a widespread system error in the agency’s computer database.

“Many voters could not find their names in their precinct’s list. It is a systems problem,” city election officer Dina Valencia said.

She added that the voters were referred to the PPCRV or to the local Comelec office.

In Concepcion, Malabon City, rivals traded allegations of vote-buying.

Supporters of Cristy Bernardo, the wife of slain barangay captain Maximo Bernardo, accused another candidate, Michael Santiago, of handing out money to voters under the pretense of shaking their hands.

Cristy is standing in for her husband who was shot dead by two unidentified men on a motorcycle on October 17. The Northern Police District did not classify his death as an election-related incident for lack of evidence linking his political rivals to the killing.

Protest

At the Andres Bonifacio Elementary School in Torres-Bugallon Street, supporters of a candidate for barangay captain, Salve Maria Bilayon, staged a protest in front of several polling precincts to stop some 40 suspected flying voters from casting their ballots.

The protesters claimed that Bilayan filed an electoral protest in August to protest the 40 persons’ inclusion on the list of voters because they all had given the same address.

But election officer Irene Baniqued told the Inquirer that they had been instructed by the Comelec to allow the 40 persons to vote on the condition that they would sign a document recognizing that their identity and residence were still under question.

“We cannot stop them from voting because the resolution regarding the complaint is still pending,” she explained.

Same old woes

Back to the manual style of voting, back to the usual problems.

This seemed to be the case at Andres Bonifacio Integrated School (Abis) in Barangay Addition Hills, Mandaluyong City.

Tirso Calipusan, 56, said he waited in line for at least two hours just to find out what his precinct number was.

“This is my fourth time to vote here. Why should I still fall in line to look for my name?” he said in exasperation.

Jumbled names

He added, “They jumbled our names again so it was hard for us to find them.”

“The election in the school was generally peaceful except for some glitches like missing pages in the posted computerized voters’ list,” election supervisor and ABIS school principal Evelina Barandoc told the Inquirer.

In Jose Fabella Elementary School, voters complained about the long lines. Earlier, school officials had to convert the multipurpose hall into a polling precinct due to the lack of classrooms.

Kontra-Daya members, meanwhile, complained about non-residents of San Juan City being able to vote in Barangay Pinaglabanan.

Flying voters in jeeps

Iggy Rodriguez, spokesman of the election watchdog, said they learned that some 400 people who had relocated to another area after their houses in Pinaglabahan were demolished still managed to cast their votes.

He added that the 400 were ferried to the polling precincts in the city on jeepneys. He claimed that some of their members were able to take pictures of the flying voters.

“But we are still gathering hard evidence on this,” he stressed.

At the University of the Philippines Integrated School in Quezon City, missing pages in voters’ list delayed the voting process.

“These were the same problems as before,” Madel Murillo, the Board of Elections Inspectors chairperson assigned to the school, said.

“There were people who gave up after looking for their names for about 30 minutes,” she added.

Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting volunteers were assigned to handle the voters’ complaints at the UPIS.

To secure the area, six policemen were deployed to the school grounds.

UPIS served as the polling center for 36 clustered precincts.

Voting in comfort

At La Vista Subdivision in Quezon City, voters filled out ballots at the clubhouse sans the litter, long lines and chaos found at public schools serving as polling precincts.

“We have implemented a system here. There are fast lanes for the elderly so that everything is organized and the residents will have an easier time,” said teacher and supervisor Tina Latayan.

The gated village is under the jurisdiction of Barangay Pansol.

But like most precincts, there were the usual complaints.

“There are some cases of missing names so we refer them to the Commission on Elections office in Quezon City. No one is allowed to give away flyers and the policemen are on hand to stand guard,” Latayan said.

Some of the subdivision’s residents include former First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, ex-Senator Jamby Madrigal, Senator Miriam Santiago, and ex-presidential chief of staff Mike Defensor.

The Comelec office in Quezon City said the barangay was among those considered as election areas of concern because of heated rivalries between candidates in past polls.

Election officer Sheila Rojas Rafanan said the other areas of concern were Barangay Batasan Hills, Commonwealth and Nagkaisang Nayon.

“So far, there are no untoward incidents that are election-related. The canvassing of election returns for Barangay Payatas, however, will be done at City Hall,” she said.

At Payatas A. Elementary School, school principal Edgardo Morales said the canvassing of votes was expected to take four days.

“While the rest of Quezon City barangays are proclaiming their barangays, we are still counting the election returns,” he said with a laugh.

Election litter

Long lines and election litter were the usual scenes at Payatas A. Elementary School and at Quirino Elementary School in Project 2, which covers Barangay West Kamias, Quirino 2A, 2B and 2C and other public schools in Quezon City.

Asked if the teachers and Comelec officers had any control over the candidates’ supporters distributing fliers and pamphlets, principal Concepcion Albano of Quirino Elementary School said this was the job of the Quezon City Police District.

“I personally drove them away from the school gates and so did the policemen assigned to our school. But once we turned our backs, they returned,” she said.

Vote-buying in Makati

No untoward incidents occurred during the elections in Makati City but some polling precincts reported some violations committed by candidates and their supporters.

Senior Superintendent Froilan Bonifacio, Makati City police chief, said they received several complaints, including allegations of votes being bought at prices ranging from P200 to P500 at Barangay Lorenzo and Comembo. However, Bonifacio said no one filed any formal complaints.

“The parties should prove their allegations. If no one would lodge a complaint, it’s just hearsay and we cannot do anything about it,” said Bonifacio.

Fight inside polling precinct

In Valenzuela City, two men decided to go at it right inside a polling precinct.

The scuffle between Rogelio Manalao, a poll watcher at Silvestre Lorenzo Elementary School in Barangay Ugong, and Rafael Dada had nothing to do with the elections.

However, one of them may be charged for trying to hit the other with the ballot box.

Dada, according to Senior Inspector Vicente de Guzman, started the fight by going inside a polling precinct and hitting Manalo in the neck.

The two men wrestled for a while until they were separated by other people. Dada, meanwhile, picked up the ballot box in the precinct and attempted to hit Manalo with it.

De Guzman said that their initial investigation showed that the two men had long been at odds with each other and just chanced upon each other inside the polling precinct.—DJ Yap, Jeannette I. Andrade, Beverly T. Natividad, Niña Calleja, Kristine Felisse Mangunay, Jeannette I. Andrade and Julie M. Aurelio, Metro Staff, Philippine Daily Inquirer