Members of militant groups symbolically padlocked the Regional Office of the Comelec in Central Visayas to condemned the poll body’s alleged failure to uphold a fair and honest elections. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO / Bayan Central Visayas
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Militant groups in Cebu called on the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to form an independent investigating body that will look into the technical glitches during the May 2019 midterm elections.
Cebu chapter members of various partylists belonging to the Makabayan bloc in Congress staged a picket rally in front of the regional office of the Comelec in Cebu City on Wednesday, June 5.
The militant groups composed of Bayan Muna, Kabataan Partylist, Bayan, Anakpawis, Gabriela and other multisectoral groups arrived at the Comelec office around noon to air their grievances involving the results of the recent polls.
The groups symbolically padlocked the doors of the regional office with paper-made chains to condemn the poll body’s “failure” to uphold a clean and fair election.
John Ruiz, coordinator of Bayan Muna in Central Visayas, said the Comelec should address the seven-hour glitch in the transparency servers of the Comelec and the technical malfunctions of the vote counting machines observed in many provinces.
“This is our expression of disappointment for the failure of the Comelec to show credible and fair elections. We demand that the Comelec make the necessary response to address these concerns especially that the next elections would be the presidential elections,” Ruiz said.
Ruiz said an independent body composed of non-government organizations such as the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and the media should be formed to ensure the credibility of the recent elections.
Ruiz said they are willing to hold a dialogue with officials of the Comelec to formally air out their concerns in the elections and share their suggestions based on what they gathered on the ground.
“We are open for dialogue so we can air out our suggestions because we, who are on the ground, saw a lot of concerns during the elections,” said Ruiz. / celr