Regardless of who won yesterday’s elections–there were indications that the tabulation of votes will stretch beyond midnight—it is useful for us voters to take stock of what transpired during the campaign period as well as preparations for the actual election process which nearly came down to the wire due to last-minute Supreme Court rulings.
First, the campaign period. It was to be expected that emotions and sentiments would run high among voters who each have their own preferred candidates but the hostility and vitriol had never been as intense as this year, when people attacked each other over social media, freely hurling insults and putdowns to the point of causing breakdowns in personal relations.
Was it truly worth it to insult people and tear up friendships and strain family ties to defend a candidate/s that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) rightly said would not know voters from Adam/Eve?
The freewheeling nature of social media has given pause and raised concerns among not a few people about how it can be easily used not only as a playground by trolls and muckrakers but as an effective propaganda tool by political groups campaigning for their candidates.
As expected, campaign propaganda can stretch to outright lies as evidenced by the camp of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, whose campaign strategists have Photoshopped popular foreign personalities like US President Barack Obama and Pope Francis holding cards and making them appear that they endorsed him for the presidency.
We trust that Filipino voters are wise to the ways of these campaign strategists and made informed choices of their candidates. Cleary there is no “Truth in Advertising” in campaigning. But at the same time, not all of us are impervious to the bandwagon effect created by these strategists, while election operators are also kept busy devising ways to cheat.
When the Supreme Court ruled that voters should be given receipts, the Comelec had to double time and ensure that the vote-counting machines can be programmed to do just that. Election operators, as disclosed by the Comelec had devised ways to go around this requirement, by persuading people to use grapes, soaked hair and chalk as well as giving them fake receipts to place in receptacles while pocketing the real receipts so they can receive cash from their benefactors.
We’re not even talking about the violence which escalated in the days leading up to the elections and resulted in a number of deaths that while not particularly large in Cebu so far had given candidates an excuse to ask for exemption from the gun ban and arm their followers in preparation for possible retaliation from rival camps.
Thus not only do Filipino voters and the national and local governments have to contend with election violence and cheating, they also have to deal with the sociopolitical climate of vitriol, hate and lies that was fomented by propagandists, election operators and political groups who continue to create a worst-case scenario of government-mandated cheating and hijacking of the election process that would supposedly lead to a failure of elections.
Can we truly see the day when the elections would be free from these anomalies? Based on what happened, our election process and our country’s democracy remains a work in progress.
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