NATIONAL CITIZENS’ MOVEMENT FOR FREE ELECTIONS (NAMFREL)

Unit 601, DMG Center, D.M. Guevara corner Telephone: +63 (2) 484-7590
Calbayog Extension St., Mandaluyong City Telefax: +63 (2) 470-4151
Philippines 1550 E-Mail: secretariat@namfrel.com.ph
Website: www.namfrel.org.ph

November 2, 2010

NAMFREL statement on the 2010 Barangay and SK election

The National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) commends the
Filipino voters for participating in the 2010 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan
Elections. Being the basic government unit of our society having the most
immediate impact on our lives and household, the barangays as well as the people
who run them deserve our utmost attention. The people's active participation in the
election proves that Filipinos recognize this and give importance to the betterment
of their immediate communities.

NAMFREL commends the public school teachers who once again showed their
dedication in serving as election administrators in their assigned precincts despite
the challenges. We also recognize the contributions of the police and the military
and their visibility around voting centers in their effort to keep the process
peaceful. NAMFREL also congratulates candidates' watchers and election
observers, most especially the NAMFREL volunteers and ordinary citizens who
monitored the election in their personal capacity even without seeking
accreditation to participate in the barangay elections, for coming out, and being
vigilant.

Preliminary evaluation

Though we recognize the efforts of the Comelec to make the process and
preparations transparent and inclusive, especially in the bidding for election-related
services and materials, the delay in voting in more than 2,000 barangays all over
the country is simply inexcusable. The Comelec and other stakeholders have given
various reasons for the delay, from a delayed bidding process to the inclement
weather, but ultimately, the responsibility of holding elections and timely planning
are solely the Comelec's.

NAMFREL supports the calls for the immediate investigation of the Comelec-led
fact finding committee to determine the cause and liability of this unnecessary
delay, and encourages the meting out of punishment for those responsible. The
Comelec should take this investigation as an opportunity to assess and improve
itself so as to institute more meaningful reforms as the country’s election
management agency.
NAMFREL would like to express its dismay over the incidences of election-related
violence despite the decrease in casualties as PNP claimed. We would like to
recommend a stronger implementation and expansion of the gun ban, the cleansing
of the gun registry, and the ban's implementation even beyond election seasons.

We are dismayed that some candidates knowingly violated elections rules to win at
all costs (such as candidates who filed certificates of candidacy knowing that
they have exceeded the legal limit, to violating the campaign materials regulations,
to buying votes, to not controlling their leaders and agents, etc.)

Vote buying was observed in many areas of the country, both in cash and in kind.
On the other hand some voters continue to sell their rights and patrimony for a few
hundred pesos, thereby deserving the leaders that they get. We encourage
authorities to seriously look into allegations of vote buying, and to prosecute the
offenders. We encourage citizens to be more vigilant, and be the steward of clean
and honest elections in their own communities by reporting cases of vote buying
and other campaign irregularities to the Comelec and to election watchdogs, and to
make sure that offenders are prosecuted and/or disqualified from holding or
running for office.

NAMFREL volunteers note the absence of voters lists in many areas prior to
election day, which would have enabled voters to check their names and precinct
locations. On election day, there were still many cases across the country of voters
not being able to find their names and the presence of dead people on the voters
lists, as well as names of those who have already relocated even 10 years prior.
This has been a perennial problem in Philippine elections that the Comelec could
not seem to make any progress on. We encourage the Comelec to prioritize the
cleansing of voters list if it is serious on reforming the electoral system.

NAMFREL notes that the voting process was fast, and the counting quick.
However, being a manual election, we observed difficulty in appreciation of the
votes, inherent in the kind of manual voting system the Philippines has wherein all
the names of chosen candidates would have to be written individually.

NAMFREL also has several concerns regarding the conduct of the election itself in
the different voting centers:
1. Campaigning continued unabated even on election day. Despite the presence of
the PNP and the accredited citizens' arm, candidates' agents were able to freely
distribute campaign materials not only outside the voting centers but also inside.
Stronger enforcement of election laws should be done by the Comelec as well as
by the PNP being a Comelec-deputized agency. We suspect that many citizens,
including children, participate in these activities not knowing that they are
breaking the law, since they think this is acceptable because it has been a practice
that seem to go unpunished every election. We therefore encourage a deeper and
more intensive kind of voters education that would engage as many sectors of
society as possible, so that the basic, universally acknowledged do's and don’ts of
elections could be properly instilled in the citizenry.

2. There was lack of management inside voting centers. We observed the presence
of campaign materials in the school premises; candidates lingering during voting
hours after they have voted; lack of crowd control that it was difficult to tell who
were voters and who were the candidate watchers; noisy watchers and even unruly
teenagers allowed to linger in the halls especially during the counting; lack of
proper sanitation and garbage disposal inside schools; lack of space inside the
classrooms that watchers were forced to crowd over the windows in the corridors
just to be able to observe; lack of secrecy of voting in some polling precincts
observed; and lack of training among the BET assistants, especially evident in the
morning of election day.

NAMFREL will continue to monitor the conduct of special elections, as well as the
ongoing investigation by the Comelec fact-finding committee on the delays.