Goma rolls on

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga – International observers monitoring the elections here have blamed the presence of military and police personnel at polling precincts for the low turnout of voters in the home province of President Arroyo.

“Militarization of elections cannot be simply defined as the massive presence of uniformed armed men, but the fear instilled in the electorates’ hearts a month, even a year or two prior to the elections,” said Arnljot Ask, a Norwegian volunteer and one of the two spokespersons for the Peoples’ International Observers Mission (PIOM) which monitored the elections in Pampanga.

The PIOM team had been monitoring the polls and canvassing of ballots for the past four days.

He said the mission had documented a few cases of military and police presence on polling precincts but it does not mean the communities were not “militarized.”

Ask cited the case of Angeles City Mayor Carmelo Lazatin, who eventually won in the congressional race in Pampanga’s first district, noting that when he cast his vote at the Pulung Bule Elementary School in his city, the candidate was escorted by four heavily-armed policemen that even entered the polling precinct while four other armed police officers stayed outside.

“Just five meters from the school’s gate a squad of the Army’s 69th Infantry Battalion had set up a detachment at the barangay hall,” the Norwegian said.

Gloria Tanhueco, chairman of the Board of Election Inspectors at Pulung Bule Elementary School, said the military presence nationwide is intended to neutralize the influence of leftists and terrorists in the barangays.

“This affected the willingness of the Filipino masses to participate in the electoral process in general and the party-list group system in particular, as can be gleaned from the canvass results of towns like San Luis with a measly 55 percent voters’ turnout and just a 27 percent participation in the party-list elections,” Ask said.

He said the international observers also noted the presence of detachments near schools and polling precincts, like in Barangay Santa Lucia and San Jose Panlumacan in San Fernando City.

“All of them (detachments) have big anti-terrorist streamers prominently displayed,” Ask said.

He said government officials and the media have reported that the elections were generally peaceful.

“But I believe that beneath the seemingly peaceful layer are a people questioning the latest political exercise,” he said.

The PIOM was an initiative of different peoples’ organizations, human rights defenders, artists and media practitioners including 26 foreign observers. Some of the volunteers also observed the polls in Nueva Ecija, the Visayas and Mindanao. 

International observers that monitored the polls in Negros Occidental were apparently alarmed by the alleged pattern of violence and threats and the proliferation of private armed groups maintained by local politicians. The team also noted the presence of the communist New People’s Army rebels and the breakaway faction of the Revolutionary Proletarian Army in some areas.

A report of the international team noted that poverty, the wide disparity of wealth and income, large-scale unemployment and the existence of powerful landlords have provided a very disturbing context for the elections.

The mission, along with the Compact for Peaceful Elections-Negros Occidental chapter, observed elections in the towns of La Castellana, Moises Padilla, Pulupandan and Valladolid, and Escalante and Bacolod cities.        – With Antonieta Lopez