MANILA – President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has invited foreign observers to monitor the coming May elections as she reiterated her vow for a smooth transition to a new government when she steps down from power on June 30.
Addressing the annual meeting of the Philippine Councilors League in Cebu City in the Visayas, the President pointed out that clean, free and honest elections would be her greatest legacy in the nine years of her administration.
She emphasized “To protect the integrity of the vote and the election results, we encourage and welcome independent outside election observers to verify that the elections are, indeed, free, clean and open and the results valid, free from any political interference.â€
To achieve this, she also vowed not to interfere in the electoral process, saying she would leave this to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to ensure that the May 10 automated polls, the country’s first-ever, would work.
This means, the President stressed, that the Comelec would be solely responsible in ensuring that the votes are protected and counted and that the results are delivered in a rapid manner to the satisfaction of the voters.
She reiterated her vow apparently to ease fears from concerned sectors, including religious groups and the political opposition, that Arroyo “loyalists†particularly in the military were working out a “no election†scenario in May so she could extend her stay in Malacanang.
Malacanang has vehemently denied that such scenario is in the works even as Director General Jesus Verzosa, the chief of the 125,000-strong Philippine National Police, warned he would strongly oppose any attempt to postpone the May elections.
The Comelec estimates that about 50.7 million voters are to troop to the 80,000 polling precincts throughout the country on May 10 to elect the successors of President Arroyo and Vice President Noli de Castro whose terms expire on June 30 as mandated by the 1986 Constitution.
Also at stake are 12 senators who are to be elected nationally, 55 seats for party-list groups in the House of Representatives as well as local positions like congressman, governor, mayor and councilor.
Earlier, an international election watchdog, the Asian Network for Free Elections (Anfrel), announced it would send a 32-member delegation to the Philippines to monitor the polls to determine whether the automation system would also work in other parts of Asia and the Pacific.
An Anfrel spokesman said the delegation would assess not just the actual elections but the preparations as well, including the training and education of voters and members of the board of election inspectors.
The Bangkok-based Anfrel is composed of civil society groups from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
The spokesman noted that Anfrel likewise sent a delegation to observe the 2008 polls in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) where computers were field-tested for the first time by the Comelec in preparation for the 2010 elections.
The spokesman said members of the delegation had expressed grave concern following their observations of vote-buying, intimidation of voters and similar election-related abuses that marred the ARMM polls.
In this light, the success of the May 10 automated polls in the Philippines will open a new era in modernizing the electoral process that could be emulated by neighboring countries, according to the spokesman.
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