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| Nakaboto na si Marilyn Marasigan (kanan), ang OFW na unang bumoto noong ika 9 ng Abril at pinakahuling botante ng araw na iyon. Nireject ng VCM ang balota ni Marasigan at dineklarang 'spoiled ballot' ito. Tinawagan ng Konsulado si Marasigan para pumunta sa Bayanihan Center para muling ilagak ang kanyang boto. Kaharap ang media at si Vice Consul Alex Villespin, binuksan ng Special Board of Election Inspector ang selyadong balota at si Marasigan mismo ang nagpasok sa Vote Counting Machine. Tagumpay na tinanggap ng VCM ang balota at resibo ng boto ni Marasigan. |
Except for the four vote counting machines (VCM) malfunctioning because of the high humidity, the first two weeks of voting in Hong Kong proceeded smoothly.
As of April 27, a total of 24,628 overseas Filipinos in Hong Kong had cast their ballots at the Bayanihan Center in Kennedy Town, out of the 93,000 voters who are registered in Hong Kong. Consulate officials, who are overseeing the poll, said they hope more people will vote in the coming days.
Voters have until May 9 to elect a new president, vice-president, 12 senators and one partylist.
Of the four VCMs that malfunctioned and sent back to the Manila headquarters of the Commission on Elections, three have been replaced by spare machines sent by Comelec in the first week of voting. The Consulate is asking for at least four more spares, with about two more weeks to go before polling ends on May 9.
Vice Consul Alex Vallespin, head of the election board that conducts the voting in Hong Kong, was amazed that despite only nine vote counting machines operating, the election has not been disrupted.
But while the polling went smoothly, voters hardly noticed that four VCM had crashed by Apr 23.
The last incident which happened at around 2:45 pm on April 23, caused Consulate officials to scramble to draw up contingency arrangements ahead of what is expected to be another heavy voter turnout the next day, a Sunday.
Three voters who failed to insert their ballots into the machine in room 501 were asked to put them inside sealed individual envelopes which they were asked to sign, then hand over to the SBEI for safekeeping. They will have to reinsert their own ballots into another machine at a future date.
Vallespin said he is optimistic the machine breakdowns will not cause too much of a problem.
But there were events worth noting.
Amid the quiet day at Bayanihan on April 26, was a big fuss on social media over a cheating claim by a supporter of presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte. (https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=eva%20ocate% 20villa%20video)
The supporter who cast her ballot on Apr 17, returned to Bayanihan on Apr 24, to complain about an SBEI (special board of election inspectors) who allegedly threatened to file a case against her for taking a photo of her ballot receipt.
The voter said she took the photo because the receipt did not show the names of her chosen president and vice president.
But according to Consulate officials, the receipt just got crinkled on top so the names overlapped. Taking a photo of the receipt is, indeed, a violation of Comelec rules.
After some explaining by Consulate officials in the presence of media representatives and poll watchers, the voter eventually calmed down.
However, a video of her being interviewed by Duterte supporters about the alleged cheating circulated on social media.
On April 27, another voter roused members of the Special Board of Election Inspectors in Room 603 when she raised a howl over why the names printed on her tear-off ballot receipt were not those of the candidates that she had marked on her ballot.
Vallespin rushed to the room when the issue was relayed to him.
“We told the voter that looked impossible, but we asked her to file a complaint so that we would send it to the Comelec,” Vallespin told The SUN.
He said the voter declined to fill out a pro forma affidavit stating her complaint.
Vallespin said SBEIs were supplied the affidavit forms so that voters who complain about what they perceive as cheating in the precincts can file a formal complaint that would be investigated by the Comelec.
“It seems some people are seeing mirages,” a puzzled Vallespin said of some voters’ claims about mismatched ballots and receipt printouts. “I can’t still make out how such things happen.”
He said he was doing a report to the Comelec about the various voter complaints relating to the vote counting machines installed in the polling precincts.
So far, he added, only one voter has filed an affidavit (on April 26), complaining that her receipt showed more than the 10 senatorial candidates she had picked.
Another incident noted by poll watchers on April 25, was when a voter was mistakenly given two ballots, because these that were stuck together.
When a poll watcher said the ballots could not be inserted into the vote counting machine, the SBEI (special board of election inspectors) marked the ballots as spoiled.
But according to Vallespin, the voter was made to choose which of the two ballots she wanted to insert into the machine: the first where her choices for president, vice president and senators were marked, or the second with her partylist vote.
The voter chose the first.
More drama ensued on Apr 23 when a woman claiming to be a resident reportedly blew her top upon learning that she could not vote because her name had been deactivated by Comelec.
According to a Facebook post by Consul Charles Macaspac, the woman failed to vote in the past three overseas elections.
Comelec has deactivated voters who failed to cast their ballots in at least two successive elections.
“We were not informed! You should have texted us, trabaho niyo yan! Ang hirap sa inyo, OFW lang inaasikaso niyo! OFW lang sila, residente kami!” the woman reportedly shouted.
That led Macaspac to step in and tell her she should have read the reports in community newspapers and watched Philippine television. The woman retorted by saying she only read the SCMP and watched ABS-CBN.
Macaspac’s post about the irate voter drew the ire of many Filipinos, who were particularly incensed by the woman’s arrogant assertion that she, as a resident, had better rights than an OFW.
Obviously miffed himself, Macaspac closed his post with the statement: “Isang boto po para sa bawat isang rehistradong Filipino. Walang residente, walang OFW, lahat Filipino.”
Other residents, however, has other problems.
In the case of old timer Carmencita D. Han, her trip to Kennedy Town would have been wasted after taking a circuitous two-hour trip by bus, train and taxi from her home in Tsz Wan Shan, and then taking 15 minutes to limp her way up to the secretariat because of her arthritic legs.
The reason: she had used a name when she registered and another when she went to the information desk. Her name on her Hong Kong ID did not appear in the list of voters. But before thing went out of hand, she remembered that she brought her passport which bore the name she had used to register.
“I registered as Carmencita D. Bautista, but I remarried about six years after my husband died in 1995,” she said. She then married a Korean trader surnamed Han, and when she got a new HK ID card, she used his surname.
She said she last went to the polls in 2010, when she voted for incumbent President, Benigno S. Aquino III.
What encouraged her to travel all the way from Tsz Wan Shan to vote? She said she wanted her candidate to win and even placed a bet on him.She is hoping the government will give farmers more help, provide children better education, and the country is rid of rape, drugs, and killings.
“Kung sino’ng gusto natin, yung nakikita nating may ginagagawa para sa bayan,” Aling Carmen said.
After checking with the Commission on Elections which gave the all-clear, Consulate staff helped Aling Carmen secure a ballot and feed it into the vote-counting machine.
Aling Carmen came to Hong Kong in the 1960s with her first husband, Ruben, a musician. Their children who were all born and raised in Hong Kong, are now grown-ups with families of their own and have adopted different nationalities.
Still, the list of people unable to vote because their names were not in the list furnished by the Commission on Elections, is growing.
As of 3pm of April 25, 34 voters had found to their dismay that their registration had been deactivated because they failed to vote twice consecutively in previous elections.
Another 80 who registered last year were not on the list.
Those whose names were deactivated did not stand a chance, but those who had been mistakenly left out of the list were made to wait while the secretariat texted Comelec to try to get them cleared to vote.
Those who had been inadvertently dropped from the official list were able to vote after Comelec gave the Consulate the go signal through an exchange of viber messages.
One voter from Sai Kung who listed up in the voter registration at the Consulate last year, was disappointed when her name was missing from the Comelec voters list.
“They told me to come back and bring my registration slip so I could vote,” she said.
Another woman, Arlyn Panes from Mid-Levels, said she had registered several years ago and was surprised not to find her name on the list.
When asked if she voted in the past two national elections, she said no. She said she was not aware of the Comelec deactivating nearly 14,000 Hong Kong-based voters from the list for failure to exercise their rights.
If there are fears officials harbor about the election, it is that turnout would be lower than their target of 45 to 50 per cent.
Their fears were heightened on Apr 25, a Monday, when only 334 voters turned up—one of the lowest turnout so far.
But this could be explained by the fact that work must have kept most Filipino voters from trooping to the voting center.
Measures have been adopted to raise turnout, including providing buses to offer free rides to those who live in farflung areas to come to Bayanihan Center to vote. The buses were paid for by private companies and non-government groups who joined the campaign to convince voters to exercise their right.
Outside the voting center, in the bus terminal where the buses unload the voters, campaigners from all sides formed a gauntlet through which voters had to go through.
This was formally deemed legal after the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) on April 20 lifting the Commission on Elections (Comelec) ban on campaigning. The ban is set out in Republic Act 9189 or the Overseas Absentee Voting Act which prohibits campaigning abroad during the 30-day overseas voting period.
The high court allowed campaigning abroad except in Philippine embassies and consulates, as well as other premises where voting takes place.
The TRO was obtained by Filipino-American businesswoman Loida Nicolas-Lewis, who said the prohibition on campaigning overseas violates the right to assembly and freedom of expression.
