Last Monday Ilocos Norte Rep. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. proposed that the poll watchdog National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) be abolished. He said that the NAMFREL failed to address fraud, and only moved to divide the country, citing its part in baring allegations of fraud in both the 2004 and 2007 elections.
NAMFREL traces its roots back to 1957 as the Citizen’s National Electoral Assembly, its current form being established in 1983, and its role most pronounced in the 1986 snap elections where Bongbong Marcos’s father Ferdinand ran against Corazon Aquino.
NAMFREL National Chairperson Henrietta T. De Villa issued this statement regarding the issue:
This has reference to the news item that ‘MARCOS URGES ABOLITION OF NAMFREL.” In said item Ilocos Norte Representative Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. was quoted as having said: “The country was deeply divided because of allegations of fraud during the 2004 and 2007 elections and Namfrel has done nothing about it. I think it’s about time we abolish Namfrel.”
The task of getting rid of electoral fraud cannot be the lone responsibility of one movement but a joint effort by both government and civil society. That is why in a free society, people are encouraged to participate in good governance, even to form themselves into organized movements and associations that will help rid it of corrupt and fraudulent practices, as well as safeguard and sustain the true meaning of democracy which is “the rule of the people.” Public officials who advocate the curtailment of this freedom and participation of the people are dangerous to the survival of democracy. They must be reminded that in a democracy, “government is created by elections.”
The National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections – NAMFREL – was the lone CSO that dared to monitor the conduct of the 1986 Snap Elections and against all odds, braved the barricades to try the impossible – free and fair elections in the age of the dictatorship.
It is sad and alarming that a public official calls for the decimation of a Civil Society Organization that is synonymous with the 1986 Peaceful People Power Revolution, especially at a time when the legacy of beloved President Cory Aquino has once again stirred the hearts and minds of Filipinos to value our freedom and democracy and never again allow the tyranny of corrupted power to oppress us. And NAMFREL continues to be pro-active in the preservation of our freedom and the flourishing of our democratic institutions.
I am reminded of a Biblical passage that would be applicable for all concerned in this unfortunate situation: “HE WHO IS WITHOUT SIN LET HIM CAST THE FIRST STONE(sic).”
(signed)
AMBASSADOR HENRIETTA T. DE VILLA
National Chairperson
The fact that the electoral process has become under fire from various fronts, ranging from failed bids for automation, to proposals to abolish watchdog groups, down to failure-of-election scenarios, make it clear that the electoral process and, ultimately, democracy itself, is once more under great threat.
Such threats only underscore the importance of vigilance and support in the part of ordinary citizens to help out and support organizations like NAMFREL, if only to minimize the seemingly impossible-to-eradicate malaise of massive electoral fraud.
Popularity: 2% [?]
I agree. My question is, what can NAMFREL do to safeguard automated elections (as it is currently proposed by COMELEC)? How does it adjust its role to the fact that it can no longer witness the counting?
Obviously it prevents COMELEC from monopolizing the broadcast of election results. Do you really want to get all your news from government mouthpieces?
If we abolish NAMFREL, let us replace it with two or more NAMFREL.
Anything that makes politicians step carefully is a good thing.
I did say i agreed with Jon’s blog entry. My question is how will NAMFREL safeguard the elections now that it cannot verify the automated count? (I’m interested in how NAMFREL will prevent itself from being a mere rubber stamp.)
Remember the United States presidential election and recount in Florida, 2000?
Just because you have automation doesn’t mean there is no longer any place for eyeball accounting. Now that we have mobile phones and the Internet, NAMFREL can still be viable.
Heck, we got 90M people with mobile phones with cameras. We should ALL keep watch. This way we don’t rely just on COMELEC and NAMFREL.
I consider that to be a greater act of individual sovereignty than indelible ink on your finger.
Francis, with full automation as proposed by COMELEC there is no count to ‘eyeball’.
Does anyone here have an accurate info covering the automation? This isn’t just IDs anymore, right?
If its all digital and no hardcopy, then screw it. I’m starting a boycott. No security. Even Diebolds are prone to false data.
If it has a hardcopy, then we can eyeball the counting and requests for recounts are safeguarded.
Is this it?
http://www.smartmatic.com/solutions/automated-election-system/
It looks like there’s a hardcopy, but I’m not sure. What other countries use this model?
Francis, yes there’s still a hardcopy, but on election day, it is the machine that counts it. I had an entry on this two weeks ago:
http://filipinovoices.com/trading-the-ballot-box-for-a-black-box
As long as there is a hardcopy to verify manually, I don’t mind if the recount by third party watchdogs isn’t instantaneous. :)
I wonder… will there be a ‘none of the above’ choice? How do I leave a position blank if I don’t like the choices offered?
Mrs Aquino’s passing proved how partisan NAMFREL really was in 1986. Mr Ferdinand Marcos Jr is right on this score. But he is wrong to believe that NAMFREL has the sole responsibility to root out electoral fraud.
NAMFREL also cannot shake off allegations that at the start it was CIA funded.
NAMFREL should be made redundant if we have automated elections. NAMFREL I believe should disband (since it will FOREVER stained with yellow!) and a new secular citizen’s group replace it. This new group can deal with 21st century issues on elections like the proposed automation of our electoral system.
Again the question becomes, how?
I agree that NAMFREL does have a “yellow stain”. But then again if the activities of the red was balatant with respect to the yellow group, they won’t be able to help it.
My point is if you remove NAMFREL, it doesn’t mean elections become better or cleaner, it means that dirty elections will continue without anyone watching.
So you’d just remove the watchers because they are useless? Simple as that?
Namfrel screwed up in 2004. Big time. I think 2004 was the first time since it was founded that Namfrel failed. An election watchdog, or any watchdog group for that matter, does not have the luxury of second chances. Once it is suspected of bias, it becomes difficult to regain its credibility and reputation.
Having said that, Rep. Marcos is out place here; it was the wrong thing to say from the wrong person.
or is it the wrong person (bongBong — declared to have reconciled with NoyNoy) saying the right thing — Namfrel stained and should fold.
Upn,
Yup. Namfrel the org should fold but there should always be election watchdogs
blackshama,
do you also believe that yellow stained our democracy?
Democracy should be for all colours. We have to move out of this Coryist nostalgia!
typical of many anti-marcos groups, they call attention to their “heroic” efforts in the days of dictatorship like a proprietary right to everything nice and beautiful. how it escapes them is a wonder. you call attention to your so called heroic effort that was once there, people wonder why suddenly it’s gone now. if in the difficult days of dictatorship you did the impossible against all odds, how come in easier days under a democratic setup, you fail? galit lang yata ang NAMFREL sa electoral fraud pag kaaway ang gumagawa?
Very correct!
De Villa’s answer to Marcos Jr. is out of line. NAMFREL cannot always go back to 1986 to justify its future existence. It needs to be consistent in getting rid of electoral fraud to remain relevant.
Direct hit! LOL!
Touche.
Precisely the problem with leftists who always fall back to the “Tuta ng Kano” rhetoric, which is so… 1950s.
I think NAMFREL should have a SOUL SEARCHING . Instead of being
abolished. Where did it fail ? Are the people given some considerations to look the other way ? Or it is just plainly being
run by incompetent people.
I disagree that it should be abolished. Because the Congress People
sold themselves. Congress should be abolished ?
NAMFREL is a one-hit wonder.
Perhaps we need another secular movement to keep an eye on elections instead of just NAMFREL.
And I agree with blackshama, I still cannot be fully confident with a body that has been funded by foreigners and were used by them decades ago to further their own agenda.
Yup. Let’s have honest transparent elections where the voters elect Erap Estrada all over again :)
Go figure.
Amen! Alellujiah! Vox populi vox dei! The people shall speak God’s will!
blech!
So BongV, you would rather have rigged elections to prevent an Erap win?
Go go Chuck! Let’s play the elitism card again, Hoozah!
Jon, i asked a straightforward question. Does BongV support rigging the election to prevent an Erap win? Since you wrote a blog entry in support of NAMFREL, aren’t you interested in the answer as well?
NAMFREL’s failure to protect the 2004 elections has already been pointed out by Manuelbuencamino and others above. I believe that is because many otherwise decent people (even within NAMFREL itself) had similar sentiments as BongV (at that time directed against FPJ).
No matter what you think of Estrada, he won that vote fair and square.
Vote rigging even for all the right intentions is an immoral action I am not prepared to take, even if I knew then what I know now.
People who choose the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil. Sometimes, to do good, you have to do nothing.
And in case anyone asks, I VOTED for Estrada and I helped OUST him.
NO. I never have supported rigging any election.
Ganun na ba ka bankrupt mga utak nyo – that the only way to win an election is by rigging it? susmaryosep.
I support people usimg their kukote – and find a better candidate – other than Erap – puhleeeze.
Just like EDSA-1986 was.
Tsamba.
It’s no wonder that betting on the Lotto is Da Pinoy’s preferred investment strategy. :-D
Sure I’m all for an Erap presidency. That way we settle ONCE AND FOR ALL what a big load of cr9p all our “expert” poets have been waxing about this romantic notion of “the will of the people”.
And NEXT TIME, if we suddenly decide that ERap is turning out to be a cr9p president yet again, then he should be ousted the proper way and not via those ocho-ocho “revolutions”.
And if the proper way proves to be a failure yet again then, guess what: the instruments of that failure — the Congressmen elected by guess who — should be taken to task for such an outcome.
And, yes, there is more:
A no-brainer effort to take duly-elected-by-popular-vote congressmen to task ultimately leads to: GUESS WHAT: Da Pinoy Voter.
So the audit trail of accountability in a “democracy” is GUESS WHAT: Not an infinite regress.
The trail of moronism STOPS at the biggest bozo of all in this sad tale of failure:
DA PINOY VOTER.
It’s simple, really™, specially if the challenge is simplified to its most fundamental component: Platform, plez™.
So the ‘proper way’ to you is rigging the elections?
cvj:
the proper way is to use the kukote – if there’s one
I’m interested in Benign0′s answer on this matter.
cvj,
I don’t see benign0 advocating election rigging anywhere in his statement.
In fact I regret being part of Erap’s ouster myself — I now realize that if Erap hadn’t been ousted and he completed his term, it was to have been the masa’s turn to be disillusioned and disenfranchised with governance-by-way-of-messiah.
And don’t tell us that by thinking that I’m again an elitist pretending to know better, please lang. Even Jesus told God to “forgive them, for they know not what they are doing”.
Jon, i’m asking for a clarification from Benign0 because he wrote this in his previousl blog entry:
‘Whole point’? This mindset encourages the kind of *end justifies the means* thinking that allowed GMA to get away with Hello Garci.
And also there is a proposal from his Getreal Philippines website that would give college graduates more votes. That’s institutionalized rigging.
I agree with you that EDSA 2 was coup, pure and simple. We had the right methods of removing him (impeachemnt), and when things did not go the way people thought it would, they mobbed him out.
What lesson does that serve? That if I get hauled into court, I can automatically win by walking out?
But I find it ironic that your solution:
is the same mob mentality you claim to abhor. The vote don’t go our way? Howl for blood!
This is why I don’t believe in social justice or special rules for special people. We must have equality before the law, and respect the verdict whether we agree or not.
It’s not the voter that’s the problem. Its the representation.
If you want a representative government that works, LIMIT REPRESENTATION.
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/
250 Represenatives cannot possible serve the interests of 90M Filipinos. There is no personal oversight or accountability since the politician can just play his constituents against each other.
Democracy as a political system lasts only until its citizens discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public. Perhaps this is why you will never see the word democracy in either the US or 1899 Malolos Constitutions.
Both sets of revolutionaries knew that democracy was mob rule. And it doesn’t take so much to inflame a mob.
Both sets of revolutionaries took care to craft REPUBLICS so that while the democratic process was preserved, the passions of the mob was diffused. Tyranny of the majority is no less tyranny than tyranny of the minority.
Filipinos should set aside their worship of democracy and rediscover their republican roots.
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/aspects/demrep.html
http://www.mail-archive.com/thepowerhourflashstats@thepowerhour.com/msg00283.html
Forget Rizal. Forget Bonifacio. Forget Magsaysay.
Remember Calderon.
Here’s the proposal to grant ‘voting privileges’ by educational attainment.
http://www.getrealphilippines.com/solution/respdem.html
Tell me this is not elitist.
Um… by this case, wouldn’t that discriminate against people who didn’t finish their education, but are quite successful like Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, & David Murdock?
http://www.collegedropoutshalloffame.com/
I’d prefer property qualifications. If you own a residence, you can vote.
If you don’t, you can pay a poll tax equivalent to the land tax of the place you reside in.
This should limit undesirables which is your goal, right?
Not my goal, not my intention and not my right to limit ‘undesirables’.
You misunderstand me, Mr. Francis. When i say “taken to task” I still mean taken to task properly — as in they should feel the consequences in a number of ways:
(a) the next congressional election;
(b) asked to publicly justify themselves by the media with reference to whatever they stated publicly that they stood for (kaya nga a record of their original campaign platform is important here); or,
(c) asked to make a written public statement at the request of their consitituents on the matter (again a basis for evaluating their take on the matter still hinges on a platform made public during their original campaign);
etc. etc. …
As such I am 100% aligned with your position, that:
Your take on the matter (i.e. whether the 200-odd bozos are representative enough of 90 million folk is adequate) is interesting. However I am not sure if more representation addresses the underlying issue, which is the whole class of thinking applied by Pinoys in general in the practice of being a democratic people.
I like a, but the current system doesn’t bode well for long-term political memories. And this is true in all countries. Which is why you see good behaviour directly before and after the election.
I’m not too sure about about b & c.
From one end, it does place the politicos in the spotlight. As in “Explain yourselves!”
But it also may fuel mob action. “Explain yourselves, or else!”
I think the bozo actions you complain about are unintended consequences rather than any planned action.
My take on the 200 is from the idea that it is much easier for an ordinary person to keep a close personal eye on the public actions 199 of his neighbors than it is to keep an eye on a constituency of 360,000.
Not only does it make it much harder to hide corruption, the tiny size makes it much harder to cause much trouble.
On one hand, it satisfies the urge for everyone to be a boss, but it also protects people because the boss has such a tiny span of control.
Bozo the unintelligent disappears and the informed citizen-neighbor replaces him.
I’ll put together a chart later so you guys can visualize it.
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/1779/mpd.jpg
I love Filipino acronyms, slingo lingo, blathering letters, the nonsensical scrabble of righteous incompetence articulated in caps.
Joe