New Voter’s New Year’s Resolutions
EARLIER this week, the voter registration period for 2020 drew to a close with the needle not quite making it to a million registrants, despite roughly three months of voter registration.
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EARLIER this week, the voter registration period for 2020 drew to a close with the needle not quite making it to a million registrants, despite roughly three months of voter registration.
On October 23, 2020, it was reported that the Chair of the Senate Electoral Reforms and Peoples’ Participation, had said that the proposal for the establishment of a hybrid election system had to be placed on the back burner after the Covid-19 pandemic changed the priorities of the government and lawmakers. Earlier this week, with the filing of Senate Bill 1950—entitled An act providing for the conduct of hybrid national, local, and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao elections, through manual-automated voting, counting, canvassing, consolidation, and transmission, amending for the purpose Republic Act 8436, amended, and for other purposes—it would seem that hybrid elections are back on top of the agenda.
Last week, the Commission on Elections quietly relaunched iRehistro—the web site where you can supply the Comelec with your information by answering a series of questions, and print it out as a completed voter registration application form. And after you do that, you can also book an appointment with the Comelec office where you intend to register, without having to use a different program or application.
Picture this: There we all were at the National Canvassing Center, keeping track of the incoming results from the various precincts nationwide, less than six hours from the close of voting on election day, when suddenly, someone points out that the news outlets had gone dark. We checked the incoming streams of election data and everything was going smoothly, but flicking through the channels on television showed that the media reports of partial and unofficial reports had all but frozen. The transparency server was having problems.
The 2019 National and Local Elections were considered to be among the most credible elections ever held in the Philippines, bar none. And yet, hanging like a cloud over that achievement are the seven hours on election night, during which media outlets stopped updating their reports of election results. With our penchant for coming up with catch labels for these things, that period of time has since come to be known as the 7-hour glitch. And to this day, those three words—“seven-hour glitch”—are used as a snappy retort intended to negate any notion that elections in the Philippines could be trusted.
Last week, we joined the rest of the world in celebrating the Unesco Global Media and Information Literacy Week—a celebration aimed at promoting the theme “Resisting Disinfodemic: Media and Information Literacy for everyone and, by everyone.”
In 2019, with more than 62 million people voting or a voter turnout of better than 75 percent, the elections achieved a credibility rating in the 80s, one of the highest on record. The Filipino nation—by and large—accepted the outcome of the elections as the true will of the people. In no small measure was that triumph due to the determination of millions of people who trooped to the polling places, stood shoulder to shoulder even in inclement weather, and cast their ballots. And of those millions, 22,083,529 came from among your ranks.
Earlier this week, the House of Representatives was convulsed by the Speakership question, leaving the fate of the country’s 2021 budget—which includes the budget for the Comelec’s preparations for the 2022 National and Local Elections—hanging in the balance. It was a teaching moment, especially for the approximately 4 million new people expected to join the ranks of the enfranchised.
The President and the First Lady of the United States both tested positive for Covid-19 last week. On the heels of that announcement came news of others who caught the virus as well: Trump’s campaign manager, the President’s Communications Director, the President’s Counsellor, and the Chair of the Republican National Committee—all of whom have had frequent contact with each other because of the ongoing Presidential campaign. As of this writing, and five days after Trump got infected, it’s been reported that Stephen Miller—a Trump senior policy adviser—also tested positive. This brings the number of people in this White House outbreak to 10—10 people who, immediately prior to being tested, had been working closely with Trump on public events that took place over that weekend—the first presidential debates and the announcement of the nomination of a new Supreme Court Justice. Both these events are rightly characterized as being integral components of Trump’s reelection campaign.
I’m actually thankful that the idea was floated when it was. Better by far to have ideas like this out in the open where they can be addressed squarely, than to have them festering unnoticed in secret, gathering strength and momentum away from the glare of public scrutiny. So, I am genuinely grateful that an elected official, albeit in a roundabout way, suggested that we do away with the coming national and local elections because, you know, pandemic.
With voter registration in its third week, the channels we use for communicating with the public have been pretty active. The “Ask Comelec” group on Facebook has never been busier and—with more and more people sharing their first-hand experiences with actual voter registration—more helpful. And since this pandemic has all but eliminated the distinction between work and home life, answering questions from the public has become an all-day and all-night concern for me and my colleagues in the Education and Information Department of the Comelec.
Last week, the Comelec offices in NCR processed more than 6,000 applications—everything from the registration of new voters to reinstatement in the list of voters, a total of 12 separate application categories in all.
Eighty years ago this month, the determination to have an independent Commission on Elections in the Philippines proved to be unwilling to keep to the slow pace of the US Congress. Too impatient to wait for Congressional approval of the Constitutional Amendment that would later enshrine the independent electoral management body in our Charter, the fledgling National Assembly of the Philippines enacted a law—Commonwealth Act 607—that created a Commission on Elections that would be everything that they envisioned an independent and impartial election management body would be.
Voter Registration resumes on September 1, 2020—five days from now. If you just turned 18, then you can register as a new voter; if you used to vote somewhere else but want to vote in a different place in 2022, then put in for a transfer to where you want to vote. In both cases, voter registration will be in-person and it will be conducted only in the Comelec office, in your area.
IN 2012, the Comelec made the decision to discontinue the issuance of Voter IDs, in anticipation of the arrival of the new National ID system. And although the National ID still hasn’t been launched (the whole idea got a boost during the early days of the lockdowns, but I haven’t heard much about it since), the Comelec still does not issue new Voter IDs.
Last Tuesday, at around noon, I saw a question pop up on the group chat of the Comelec beat reporters, asking me if it was true that former Chairman Sixto Brillantes had passed away. Within minutes after that first query, I was inundated by calls, texts, e-mails, instant messages, and comments on my various social-media platforms, all asking me the exact same thing. It turns out that yes, at 11:08 that morning, Chair Brillantes had lost his battle with Covid-19. He would have been 81 on August 14.
I was one of those impatient for National Capital Region to slip into modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) and then general community quarantine; I was one of those who went huzzah, when GCQ finally happened; and yes, I was also one of those dreading a return to stricter grades of Q. But with the seemingly uncontrolled increase of Covid-19 positive cases, I’m also thinking that we might actually need a time-out.
The Omnibus Election Code, in Section 69, gives the Commission on Election (Comelec) the power to, of its own initiative or upon petition, “refuse to give due course to or cancel a certificate of candidacy if it is shown that said certificate has been filed to put the election process in mockery or disrepute or to cause confusion among the voters by the similarity of the names of the registered candidates or by other circumstances or acts which clearly demonstrate that the candidate has no bona fide intention to run for the office for which the certificate of candidacy has been filed and thus prevent a faithful determination of the true will of the electorate.”
With this virus not going anywhere anytime soon, it has become an absolute necessity for everyone to imagine all the different ways things will have to change. In a way, we’ve all been forced to become futurists, except that the future we’re envisioning isn’t going to come in a hundred years but, in many cases, as soon as tomorrow. Or, in the case of the Presidential elections, 2022.
The struggle to win votes in the Philippines remains largely an in-person affair, where politicians routinely get mobbed by supporters. Social distancing, after all, is a brand-new concept to the typical Filipino. With the coronavirus on the loose, however, things have to be drastically different. For starters, the precautionary measures we are now very familiar with—social distancing, the wearing of face coverings, and frequent hand hygiene—will inevitably put a damper on traditional forms of in-person campaigning.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has been in the news lately, except that for the most part, it’s not the kind of news anyone would be terribly happy about: first, there was the talk of fake voter IDs emerging once again; and second, a rather disappointing development about something that a lot of people had been looking forward to.
ON June 1, 2020, I created the Facebook Group called “Ask Comelec” (https://facebook.com/groups/askcomelec) as a response to the need to make online alternatives available to the general public eager to see to their voter registrations. The problem was that, with the Comelec deploying only skeleton work forces, my Department—the Education and Information Department—which is responsible for fielding queries from the public, wasn’t particularly well-equipped to handle telephone inquiries. And so, we turned to the one online platform that we were reasonably sure everyone had some access to—either directly or through friends and family.
Often, when people are reminded to vote—not told who to vote for, but simply reminded to exercise their franchise —they react with a great deal of skepticism. Voting doesn’t matter, some say, or that their votes won’t count anyway so why should they bother. Not surprising, yes, but still incredibly saddening and, ultimately, wrong.
One of the saddest, but funniest, things I’ve heard recently was the story of a Barangay Chairman who was so exhausted from the work thrust upon him by the quarantine that he blurted out, “If I had known that being Punong Barangay was going to be this much work, I would never have run!”
Since Monday, June 1, 2020, the Commission on Elections has been undergoing a phased resumption of its services to the public. For now, the focus is on getting the personnel and the physical offices of the Comelec ready to receive the public. In all offices, for example, only skeleton work forces, accounting for a mere fraction of the normal work force, report for duty. While this is in part meant to ensure the safety of at-risk employees, the use of skeleton work forces is primarily intended to reduce the number of people in the office at any one time; fewer people, fewer opportunities for transmission of the virus. Interestingly, there are Comelec offices that normally only have two people working in them—the Election Officer and the Election Assistant. In those cases, the need to reopen the Office and resume service to the public becomes paramount.
Today is Flag Day, marking the moment in 1898, when the Philippine flag was first flown by the Philippine Revolutionary Army after trouncing Spanish forces in the Battle of Alapan. Imagine that for a moment, but know that the flag you’re imagining is probably not the one that was unfurled on that field of victory.
Despite the threat of Covid-19, the National and Local Elections of 2022—a Presidential race, in case that little fact has slipped your mind—will most likely still involve more than 45 million voters, crowding into less than 100,000 polling places nationwide. Even two years down the road, those are still ideal conditions for a coronavirus super-spreader scenario.
There is a certain comfort in thinking that we still have about two years to go before the national and local elections. It may not be realistic to think that we’ll be completely rid of the coronavirus by then, but at least, we’ll have enough time to adequately prepare for the unique challenges posed by holding elections while the coronavirus is running rampant.
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