Bantay Eleksyon 2013

Report on the Preparationsand Conduct of Campaigns in the 2013 Elections

May 10, 2013

Introduction

This is the first report of Bantay Eleksyon 2013, a domestic election observation

mission of the Consortium on Electoral Reforms (CER) that aims to monitor the entire

process of the 2013 elections. This Report covers the preparations for the May 13,

2013 national and local elections, including the elections in the Autonomous Region

in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), and the conduct of campaign for national candidates

and the campaign for local candidates.

This report seeks to assess the state of preparedness for the holding of the 2013

national and local elections and the conduct of the national and local campaigns. In

doing so, it seeks to determine if the conduct of the elections thus far—at the eve of

the May 13 elections—achieves the international standards for free and fair elections.

Included are data from the field, media reports, and official documents related to the

2013 elections. The report contains the following areas:

A. AES Implementation and Other Preparations

B. Conduct of National and Local Election Campaign

C. Election Violence

A. AES Implementation and Other Preparations

The preparations for the holding of the midterm national and local elections on the

Second Monday of May 2013 are largely over. The election paraphernalia, including

the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) vote-counting machines, are all in place.

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The reliability of the PCOS machines themselves have been proven in the 2010

elections, with only 450 machines failing, out of 80,000 originally assigned to

clustered precincts. This translates into a 0.6% failure rate and is well below the

2.75% expected failure rate set by the Comelec.

The Final Testing and Sealing of the PCOS machines in the 2013 elections was

successfully conducted with a very low machine failure rate of less than one percent.

This may indicate the same level of reliability as the 2010 performance.

The Project of Precincts is already finished, with 77,829 clustered precincts

organized, and with corresponding Board of Inspectors (BEIs). The clustered

precincts have a varying number of voters not exceeding 700 voters. The printing of

ballots was also completed ahead of schedule. 52,333,801 ballots were already

printed by the National Printing Office by April 3, 2013, way ahead of its April 25,

2013 deadline.

However, there are still issues that provide the anxiety over the performance of the

automated election system and the credibility of AES election results:

Voters list bloating. The voters’ list remains a constant source of public apprehension,

for valid reasons. Only the ARMM voters’ list has been purged of around 500,000

spurious and underaged voters, consequently bringing down the total for the region

from 1.7 million voters to only 1.2 million voters. The rest of the country still has the

old registry dating back to the 1997 general registration.

The ARMM, due to the general registration has 100% biometrics coverage. The rest

of the country, however, only reached 84%. This affected the reliability of biometrics

in cleansing the national voter list. It also prevented the possible use of biometrics in

identifying voters during election day. The enactment of R.A. 10367 or Mandatory

Biometrics Voter Registration Law may provide the impetus in completing the

biometrics coverage. However, this is not implemented in the 2013 elections.

Lack of source code review. The source code of the AES system software, including

the one for the PCOS operations was only made available several days before the

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elections. This is already too late to assure—for the political parties and other

stakeholders—the accuracy of the count and the security of the system.

The review was unduly delayed by the ongoing legal battle between the Dominion

Voting Systems, the owner of the software, and Smartmatic, the licensee. Although

the software was sold along with the hardware when Comelec bought the 2010 leased

machines, Dominion remained in control of the source code.

To be sure, the source code review itself is not critical to the implementation of the

AES. The more critical element is the certification by a competent authority—in this

case the SysTest Lab, Inc. This was first issued in 2010, covering the AES then.

When enhancements were done to correct the errors and problems of the software in

time for the postponed ARMM elections in 2011, this required a new certification

which was issued only in time for the 2013 elections.

Conduct of the Random Manual Audit. The Random Manual Audit (RMA) was

improved to enable the immediate manual counting of ballots of one randomly-

selected precinct in each of the 232 congressional districts. This is an improvement

over the arrangement in the 2010 which was criticized for the two-month delay in

execution. However, there is concern over the early selection of the precinct for RMA

audit, which may lead to possible manipulation.

B. Conduct of National and Local Election Campaign

The national campaign involved the campaign for senatorial and party-list posts and

started 90 days before election day. The local campaign involved the campaign for

congressional, provincial, and municipal posts and started 45 days before election

day.

In 2013, the elections for ARMM posts of governor, vice-governor, and members of

the Regional Legislative Assembly were synchronized for the first time. Its campaign

period also started 45 days before election day.

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The Commission on Elections initiated several measures that strictly enforced the

laws governing the conduct of campaigns. It is widely perceived to have the political

will to do so. A number of resolutions were issued by COMELEC to ensure free and

fair elections.

However, these were not all implemented due to the various unfavorable decisions

issued by the Supreme Court. Many of these Supreme Court decisions are in the form

of Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) or an order to return to Status Quo Ante. As

such, these do not rule on the constitutionality or illegality of the Comelec actions and

can be interpreted as encroaching on the constitutional authority of COMELEC to

administer elections. Among these are following instances:

(1) Party-list groups. COMELEC tried its best to regulate the number or organizations

wanting to contest in the party-list system by implementing the criteria of having only

marginalized sectors to join the race. However, the Supreme Court overruled this

decision and ordered that a group does not have to represent any marginalized and

underrepresented sector to qualify as a party-list organization.

(2) Campaign Finance. COMELEC also attempted to strictly enforce campaign

finance rules by issuing Resolution 9476, consistent with the Fair Elections Act of

2001. It carried out a high-level campaign against use of unlawful election

propaganda. It succeeded in its anti-Epal campaign, the crackdown on illegal posters,

and the creation of a campaign finance unit.

COMELEC also spelled out the airtime limit of political ads by allowing national

candidates a total of 120 minutes on ALL TV networks and 180 minutes on radio

stations, with local candidates allotted 60 minutes on TV and 90 minutes on radio.

This is in accord with the original intent and interpretation of the corresponding

provisions in the Fair Elections Act.

However, again, the Supreme Court ordered a status quo ante and ordered COMELEC

to revert to its 2010 rule in allowing national candidates to have 120 minutes airtime

in each TV station and 180 minutes in each radio station. This, in turn, effectively

negates any rule at all since COMELEC resolutions are only implementable for a

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particular election. The Supreme Court decisions effectively scuttled efforts to level

the playing field among candidates as far as media expenditures are concerned.

(3) Liquor Ban. To prevent or minimize election violence, the COMELEC approved

the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) recommendation to extend

the liquor ban from the traditional 2 days to 5 days starting May 9. However, the

Supreme Court again issued a TRO on this resolution based on a petition contending

that the extension of the ban would cause damage to business.

(4) Money Ban. In anticipation that vote-buying will remain as the major form of

cheating in the election process throughout the country, COMELEC introduced an

initiative to curtail this illegal practice by imposing Money Ban. It is, however, a

disappointment that such initiative is meeting stiff resistance and may also be stricken

down. COMELEC was already forced to amend the relevant resolution.

The Comelec is to be commended for its efforts to institute reforms in the conduct of

campaigns in order to ensure fairness and create a level playing field. However, much

still needs to be done in order to achieve this, particularly in the field of cooperation

by the co-equal branches of government.

C. Election Violence

Election violence is still a matter of concern in the 2013 elections. However, the

number of incidents so far is tending to show a decrease of around 50% compared to

the levels of 2010 elections. For the election period in 2010 (from January 10, 2010

to June 30, 2010), there were 150 election-related violent incidents (ERVIs) that

CER-VotePeace recorded.

So far, the PNP recorded only 58 ERVIs in the period from start of campaign on

January 13, 2013 up to April 30, 2013. It recorded a total of 35 fatalities and 34

wounded. The most prevalent type of incident is shooting.

Election violence so far has remained localized to specific cities and towns, and has

not yet necessitated the placement of any area under Comelec control. There is a

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growing number of incidents attributed to the rebel New People’s Army (NPA) while

those attributed to private armed groups are still in the majority.

The PNP has designated as areas of concern in relation to election violence the

following provinces: Abra in Cordillera Administrative Region; Pangasinan, Ilocos

Sur and La Union in Ilocos Region; Cagayan in Cagayan Valley; Pampanga and

Nueca Ecija in Central Luzon; Batangas and Cavite in Calabarzon; Masbate in Bicol

Region; Samar in Eastern Visayas; Misamis Occidental in Northern Mindanao; and

Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and Basilan in the Autonomous Region in Muslim

Mindanao.

A decrease of Private Armed Groups (PAGs) was also noted by the Philippine

National Police, from 112 in 2010 to 48 in 2013. These developments can be

attributed to the effective intervention of the security sector such as Task Force Safe;

the active involvement of Civil Society Organizations, and the political will of the

Aquino government to put an end to political and electoral violence.

Various initiatives, government and civil society, were launched to forge peace

covenants among candidates and multisectoral stakeholders. They have greatly helped

in forming public opinion against election violence and warlordism.

The Payapang Bayan, Payapang Halalan (PAYAPA) campaign led by the CER and

local civil society organizations, particularly targeted the most notorious provinces in

the list of areas of concern: Masbate and ARMM, particularly Maguindanao, Lanao

del Sur, and Basilan. In these provinces, both peace covenants and multisectoral

stakeholders agreements were forge for the peaceful conduct of elections. So far, the

record showed the unprecedented lowering of the level of electoral violence in these

provinces.

CER-PAYAPA worked with the Commission on Elections, the PNP Task Force SAFE,

and other relevant government agencies on the issue of electoral violence.

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Consortium on Electoral Reforms (CER) is a coalition of 47 national organizations

and of individuals committed to strengthening Philippine democracy through electoral

reforms.

Bantay Eleksyon 2013, the CER domestic election monitoring mission, monitoring

the entire election process. It aims to monitor the various components of the electoral

process and it adheres to the principles of transparency and impartiality.

Payapang Bayan, Payapang Halalan (PAYAPA), the project addressing peace in the

major areas of election violence of Masbate, and ARMM, particularly the provinces

of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and Basilan.

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