Group Alleging Fraud in Philippine Absentee Vote Got it All Wrong, Say Officials

MANILA, 29 May 2004 — Officials said yesterday Bangon Pilipinas’ allegations of irregularities on the overseas absentee voting held in Hong Kong betrays the group’s ignorance of the rules.

The political party of defeated presidential candidate and television evangelist Eddie Villanueva had claimed in a film documentary that the voting process in Hong Kong reeked of fraud.

Portions of the documentary aired by local TV channels showed supposed violations by poll workers in all sorts of ways on April 18.

On Thursday, Bangon Pilipinas showed a video footage one of its poll watchers took in Hong Kong, which showed an election officer allegedly peeking through one of the ballots before putting it inside the envelope.

Lawyer Luis Sison, the party spokesman, called a press conference and showed the footage of what he said was one of the pieces of evidence they have on election fraud.

Of more than 300,000 overseas Filipinos who cast their ballots in the country’s first absentee voting abroad from April 11 to May 10, about 63,000 voted in Hong Kong and Macau.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Rafael Seguis, chairman of the Overseas Absentee Voting Secretariat (OAVS), expressed suprise over the showing of the documentary when the supposed violations had been clarified to watchers and representatives of Bangon Pilipinas and other political parties.

Hong Kong-based absentee voting advocate Daphne Ceniza said the film of alleged voting irregularities was an attempt to put “the entire process, the OAV volunteers and the (Philippine) Consulate under trial by publicity.”

“The unsubstantiated accusation and the poll watchers’ failure to lodge a formal protest not only delayed the process but has put a cloud of doubt over OAV Hong Kong which every body worked so hard to be blemish free,” Ceniza lamented in an e-mail.

Election Commissioner Florentino Tuason, who is in charge of overseas absentee voting, said that an official inquiry into whether the complaint was made “maliciously” was underway. “If it was maliciously done, then there may be cause of action,” he said.

Tuason said he was writing Bangon Pilipinas to ask for a copy of the video footage.

“You can draw no conclusion from the video. (Bangon Pilipinas) only put the entire election process in jeopardy,” he said.

“And they made no appeal or raised a howl. Why have they belatedly hurled the same accusations again? (The accusation) was made with lack of understanding of the procedure. There is no irregularity or systematic fraud,” he said.

Citing Section 16.6 of Republic Act 9186 or the OAV Law and the Comelec guidelines, Tuason said putting each ballot inside a special envelope was part of the procedure.

“There is nothing irregular that the member of the special board of election inspectors did,” he said.

Catherine Maceda, vice chairman of the DFA-OAVS, said the sanctity of the ballots was not violated because the poll clerk could not have seen the names of the chosen candidates.

“The ballot is folded four ways. (The poll clerk) was only looking if the ballot has been authenticated by the SBEI chairman, by authentication means looking at the signature of the SBEI chairman,” she said.

Maceda, who demonstrated the procedure, said the footage stopped as the poll clerk was standing up “presumably to put the ballot inside the ballot box. Give us the entire footage so we can view the entire process.”

On the complaint of Bangon Pilipinas that the ballot was cut, Maceda said only the coupon portion was cut, again “as part of the procedure.”

Maceda also dared the group to file a formal protest on the process in Hong Kong instead of airing its complaints through the media.

“The only way really that this issue can be addressed is through the filing of a formal complaint before the proper forum. They cannot just hurl accusations in general terms before the media. There is a proper forum for such protests and these have to be made under oath,” a visibly irked Maceda said.

She said that without a formal complaint in the proper forum such accusations were “no more than rumors that betray the hard work of the people who implemented the OAV law for the first time.”

“They can’t even name the SBEI (Special Board of Election Inspectors) member who they claim to be screening the ballot,” she said. “This is most unfair to the volunteers of the OAV,” Maceda said.

Ceniza, one of those responsible for rallying the volunteers in Hong Kong, said “it pains those who were involved in the first Overseas Absentee Voting exercise that these innuendoes of fraud have been going around the media with out giving the parties involved the chance to defend themselves against these accusations.”

“I have witnessed how the Consular staff have given themselves to the implementation of the OAV law. How they have walked the extra mile, working daily since January, foregoing sleep during the 4 days of counting, bearing the flak they got from the community when they closed the Consulate on May 10 -17 (to rest), hearing all our complaints and bearing them all.

“Let us remember that those who volunteered and the Consular staff are people too. I remember one staff cry in desperation on the barrage of complains because the Consulate has not done enough. ‘We did not ask for this! This was never mentioned when we took our post,’” Ceniza added.