COMELEC
wooing electoral fraud – Migrante
"The first automated elections in 2010 is going to be marred with electoral fraud even before it starts if the Comelec continues to conceal budget anomalies, make flawed decisions and disenfranchise voters of their right to suffrage," said Connie Regalado, Chairperson of Migrante Partylist in a protest rally in front of the Commission of Elections in Intramuros, Manila.
Migrante, a sectoral party of OFWs, was one of those recently delisted when Comelec issued an order to remove 26 groups in the list of registered partylists who can participate in the 2010 elections. The organization intends to file a verified opposition to the resolution.
Regalado claimed that they have already raised issues of irregularities to the Comelec since the registration for the Overseas Absentee Voting was shortened from one year to seven months and yet the Commissioners remained mum on the matter.
"We just found out later that the main reason for the shortening of the registration period was due to the diversion of the OAV fund to the Department of Foreign Affairs yet the commissioners are conspicuously concealing this from public knowledge up to now," Regalado explained. “This is highly questionable!”
Since the OAV started in 2004, the allocated budget for the said exercise was given to the Comelec since, by law, the Commission was defined as the lead agency on OAV matters. The group claimed that this is the first time the OAV budget was released to the DFA.
"Then the Comelec followed this with another dubious act. Rather than delisting farcical groups headed by political dynasties and human rights violators, the Comelec barred legitimate partylist groups to participate in the 2010 elections. Worse, this was done by the Commission without due process," Regalado added.
According to Migrante, they were already aware that Comelec intended to cleanse the long list of registered partylist groups. However, they expected this was going to be done by the poll body by picking groups that does not represent any marginalized sectors as defined in the partylist system act.
"We are afraid that these precedents, such as Comelec holding back information from the public, demonstrating impartiality in favor of pseudo-partylist groups, denying due process and the chance for legitimate sectoral representatives to participate in elections, could lead to more irregularities and electoral fraud as election comes nearer," Regalado explained.
To demonstrate their resolve in participating in the upcoming elections, the protesters held a giant mobile phone with the note “Let Migrante run, remove it from delisting...please pass to COMELEC”. They called on all OFWs and their families to ram the phones of the COMELEC with protest messages. ###
"The first automated elections in 2010 is going to be marred with electoral fraud even before it starts if the Comelec continues to conceal budget anomalies, make flawed decisions and disenfranchise voters of their right to suffrage," said Connie Regalado, Chairperson of Migrante Partylist in a protest rally in front of the Commission of Elections in Intramuros, Manila.
Migrante, a sectoral party of OFWs, was one of those recently delisted when Comelec issued an order to remove 26 groups in the list of registered partylists who can participate in the 2010 elections. The organization intends to file a verified opposition to the resolution.
Regalado claimed that they have already raised issues of irregularities to the Comelec since the registration for the Overseas Absentee Voting was shortened from one year to seven months and yet the Commissioners remained mum on the matter.
"We just found out later that the main reason for the shortening of the registration period was due to the diversion of the OAV fund to the Department of Foreign Affairs yet the commissioners are conspicuously concealing this from public knowledge up to now," Regalado explained. “This is highly questionable!”
Since the OAV started in 2004, the allocated budget for the said exercise was given to the Comelec since, by law, the Commission was defined as the lead agency on OAV matters. The group claimed that this is the first time the OAV budget was released to the DFA.
"Then the Comelec followed this with another dubious act. Rather than delisting farcical groups headed by political dynasties and human rights violators, the Comelec barred legitimate partylist groups to participate in the 2010 elections. Worse, this was done by the Commission without due process," Regalado added.
According to Migrante, they were already aware that Comelec intended to cleanse the long list of registered partylist groups. However, they expected this was going to be done by the poll body by picking groups that does not represent any marginalized sectors as defined in the partylist system act.
"We are afraid that these precedents, such as Comelec holding back information from the public, demonstrating impartiality in favor of pseudo-partylist groups, denying due process and the chance for legitimate sectoral representatives to participate in elections, could lead to more irregularities and electoral fraud as election comes nearer," Regalado explained.
To demonstrate their resolve in participating in the upcoming elections, the protesters held a giant mobile phone with the note “Let Migrante run, remove it from delisting...please pass to COMELEC”. They called on all OFWs and their families to ram the phones of the COMELEC with protest messages. ###
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