The 2004 Lanao del Sur vote redux?

TODAY’S special elections in Lanao del Sur assume a particular significance as the voting results — with 96,229 votes at stake — will have a bearing on the last three contested seats in the senatorial race (see the latest tally), as well as on the standing of groups vying for party-list seats. Such a situation, many observers say, again opens the electoral exercise in the province to possibilities of cheating operations similar to the 2004 elections.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) had earlier declared a failure of elections in 13 municipalities in Lanao del Sur — Bayang, Binidayan, Butig, Kapai, Kapatagan, Lumba Bayabao, Lumbatan, Lumbayanague, Madalum, Marogong, Masiu, Pualas, and Sultan Dumalondong.

On May 14, poll officers refused to serve in the polls because of harassment from armed men believed to be aligned with warring political candidates. Armed goons reportedly roamed several towns, firing their guns, scaring people and election officials.

Locals blamed the lack of police and soldiers for the failure of elections. To address this, thousands of soldiers had been deployed to provide security for the elections today. Former Philippine National Police chief Arturo Lomibao and retired Major General Jovito Palparan are personally monitoring the security arrangements. (Palparan said he will also personally monitor the elections to protect the votes of his party-list group, Bantay.)

Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento, commissioner-in-charge of elections in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), also formed a special team of election officers for today’s polls. Locals however expect that cheating will occur, especially during the counting of ballots, where vote-padding and -shaving could be done.

Abdullah Dalidig, provincial chair of the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections, said that of the 17 towns in Lanao del Sur where elections took place, “questionable vote figures” already came up, where either Team Unity candidates “made a clean sweep or were way ahead of the opposition.”

Even days before the midterm elections, Lanao del Sur had been identified as one of the areas where “massive election fraud will be committed.” Bantay Boto, a group of retired police and military officials, said the plan was part of Oplan Mercury Rising, an alleged plot by the current administration to cheat in this year’s elections.

Some observers however say that the “cheating” in Lanao del Sur actually started during the registration of voters. Flying voters, who were paid as much as P5,000, were reportedly brought in from other areas.

In fact, PCIJ research shows that there is an unusually high increase in the number of registered voters in Lanao del Sur.

Of the 13 municipalities, two towns had an increase of over 100 percent: Sultan Dumalondong, which had 1,465 registered voters in 2004 and 3,983 in 2007, or an astounding 171.88-percent increase; and Madalum, up by 107.93 percent from 3,432 in 2004 to 7,136 this year.

Marogong (82.05 percent), Binidayan (73.82 percent) and Lumba Bayabao (61.77 percent) likewise posted unusual increases.

Source: Commission on Elections, PCIJ Research

Nongovernmental organizations in Marawi City have called the increases in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), especially in Lanao del Sur, “statistically improbable.”

Lanao del Sur posted the highest increase in the number of registered voters: an additional 121,355 registered voters from the 2004 figure, or a record high of 44-percent increase.

Salic Ibrahim of the Maranao People Development Center asked in an interview with Mindanews: “Where did those 100,000 plus voters come from?”

Comelec chair Benjamin Abalos admitted that there were more than 100,000 multiple registrants in ARMM that were not excluded from the voters’ list in the region’s elections on August 2005.

Earlier this month, PCIJ sent an e-mail to Comelec ARRM Commissioner Rene Sarmiento about the extraordinary increases in some provinces in the region, particulary in Lanao del Sur. But he has not replied despite repeated assurances from him and his staff that they would look into the matter.

In an interview with Inquirer.net, Sarmiento said he was informed of the unusual increases in ARMM days before the elections but “there was no more time to cleanse the list legally through exclusion proceedings.”

In 2004, Lanao del Sur again figured prominently in the elections, especially when taped conversations between President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and then Elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano surfaced.

It will be recalled that when the president asked, “So will I still lead by more than one million (votes)?” Garcillano replied: “Mataas ho siya (Poe) pero mag-compensate po sa Lanao yan.“