Catholic bishops question 2013 elections

Philippine Catholic Bishops. Former Bishop of Boac, now Bishop of Imus, Reynaldo G. Evangelista shown in the middle. 

Questionable elections
by Rene G. Espina
Reposted from Manila Bulletin, published June 16, 2013

About three weeks ago, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines National Secretariat for Social Action (CBCP-NASSA) issued a statement that the 2013 elections were questionable. I am giving ample space in my column to that statement, since many of our citizens were not able to read it.

"The recent midterm national election makes a mockery of our democracy. Reports of rampant and large-scale vote buying, disenfranchisement of voters, malfunction of Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS), corrupted Compact Flash (CF) cards, transmission failures, and the non-compliance with the election laws by the Comelec which is mandated to manage and protect the electoral process, create public mistrust among the Filipinos.

Even before the election, the refusal of Comelec to allow parties to review the source code, as well as to install the necessary safeguards for the PCOS as provided by law, including the proper implementation of the random manual audit, cast doubt about the sincerity of the Comelec to conduct a transparent and authentic election. Source code review and other safety features are basically confidence-building mechanisms to attain clean, authentic, and credible election. We could not understand why Comelec sacrifices accuracy and truthfulness over "speed." Almost all transactions and decisions of the Commission are characterized by speed xx. Ironically the Comelec did not show the same speedy consideration to the recommendations from election advocates and watchdogs...

While we respect the positive observance and assessment of some Filipinos on the recent midterm election (being relatively peaceful, the process easier and faster, made easier by teachers, BEI's on duty, faster parallel manual counting etc). NASSA is not blind to the glaring discrepancies and election violations, the highly suspicious interventions, during the canvassing and the possible manipulation of election result during the lull hours of transmission, canvassing and consolidation of votes. 

We join the civil society watchdogs in demanding accountability from Comelec. We call for the responsible agencies for a thorough investigation of election irregularities, etc., and challenge all the faithful people of goodwill to break the culture of impunity. We as citizens should speak now. The so-called automated election with its malpractices will be perpetuated if we do not clamor for accountability. How can we obey and respect our leaders if we are not sure whether they are really elected by the people? The stake is the future of our democracy.." - rene.g.espina@gmail.com