Many people who woke up very early yesterday to cast their votes were dismayed to find out that being an early bird is not an assurance of catching the worm, in this case, getting the minimum incentive of, say, not standing in line or finding one’s name with ease in the assigned precinct.
That was yesterday’s common thread of broadcast reports by national television stations as polling precincts opened nationwide one hour ahead of official time, that is, 6 a.m. instead of 7 a.m.
From the time the precincts opened, TV stations were swamped by reports of usual hitches that plague our elections. From missing names in the list of voters, confusion in precinct assignments, delay in actual voting because of glitches in the vote-counting machines to long lines of voters.
In Sultan Kudarat, a campaigner for presidential front-runner Rodrigo Duterte reported that the problematic situation prompted voters to go home because they got tired and hungry after they were made to go from one precinct to another to no avail. In Naga City, even administration candidate for vice president Leni Robredo was not spared. She decided to leave and visit a church in the meantime after the vote-counting machine in her precinct malfunctioned.
Meanwhile, social media was awash with comments that the official ballots were designed in order to steal votes from Rodrigo Duterte and counted in favor of Mar Roxas. Duterte supporters were sharing tips on social media not to shade the oval opposite the name of the PDP Laban candidate because it will allegedly be counted in favor of the Liberal Party bet. This was electronic “dagdag-bawas” according to Duterte partisans who said the correct way was to shade the oval on the left side of Duterte’s name. I still have to hear Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista’s response to the barrage of complaints from netizens as I write this article. I can imagine him having a field day fending off accusations of bias and massive cheating.
We used to hold manual elections but anomalies plagued the system. Ballot box snatching, ballot switching and other forms of fraud at the precinct level were so widespread and flagrantly committed that elections became a farce. Many thought the decision to reform the process through automation, similar to the system in the United States, would eliminate the problems, but sad to say, the situation leaves much to be desired. Some quarters are even saying that electoral fraud through the automated system is even easier and “tidy” when compared with the manual setting.
Some media colleagues are wondering what Comelec has done in terms of giving priority to the elderly and persons with disabilities on election day.
I heard a broadcast anchor criticizing Comelec after the TV station showed footage of a senior citizen who tried to climb up the stairs of a two or three-story school building to reach his assigned voting booth. The man, who had just recently survived a heart attack, was paralyzed and had a hard time climbing up the stairs. He was only able to reach the voting precinct with the aid of volunteers.
This situation has been going on for many elections now but the poll body has turned a blind eye on the vulnerable sectors either from sheer incompetence or laziness. To think that elections are held only every three years.
As a political watcher who has covered elections since 1986, the 2016 election is by far the most heated and vicious of all political exercises. The campaign period in particular stands out because voters of all ages and social classes were very much engaged. This trend can only be attributed to social media which was so widely used by political parties and supporters that in many instances, Facebook and Twitter supplanted mainstream and established media as a source of news.
A few days before the elections, mainstream journalists had raised a howl after partisans bashed them for biased reporting. That is a sweeping accusation and is so downright unfair to those who are doing their job with sincerity and seriousness.
However, the same can’t be said as a whole for mainstream media.
Disclaimer: The comments uploaded on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of Cebudailynews. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.
