MANILA (UCAN): “What can we do? It is what it is. We are in a democratic society and we should respect the process. The difference was not only thousands but over 16 million votes and that’s a lot,” Redentor Diaz, a member of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Citizenship [PPCRV] said following the May 9 national and local elections in the Philippines which saw the ticket of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr win a landslide victory over opposition candidate and incumbent vice president, Leonor “Leni” Robredo.
Diaz said that Robredo’s supporters should begin accepting the election results and be open to the fact that another Marcos will be in office for the next six years.
The PPCRV, a Catholic poll watchdog which campaigns for honest and clean elections, said on May 12 that it had not encountered any anomalies in its tabulation of the results, which concurred with the official results of the Commission on Elections.
The PPCRV announcement laid to rest allegations —which went viral on social media—that the vote counting system had been hacked, with many of Robredo’s supporters questioning the huge difference in votes between Marcos and Robredo.
What can we do? It is what it is. We are in a democratic society and we should respect the process. The difference was not only thousands but over 16 million votes and that’s a lot
Redentor Diaz, PPCRV
With about 95 per cent of votes counted, Marcos had amassed about 31.1 million votes while Robredo had about 14.8 million.
“We have not found any evidence that the system was hacked,” PPCRV member Jess Laguesta said.
Laguesta explained that the results were consistent with the projections of pollsters, which showed Marcos had a wide lead over Robredo.
“This is not surprising because the results were consistent with opinion surveys. There is a science behind surveys and they told us that Bongbong Marcos was way ahead of Robredo in terms of numbers,” Laguesta added.
University of the Philippines political scientist, Alicor Panao, likewise said the results were expected and the cheating allegations were “speculative and unfounded.”
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Panao said, “I would have been surprised if Robredo suddenly won because the surveys indicated that she was losing. The Commission on Elections has only validated the results of the surveys, so what was surprising about that?”
Ateneo de Manila University likewise said alleged fixing was unfounded. The results were, “not unexpected … there is no abnormality here,” the university’s mathematics department said.
Tsek.ph, a collaborative act-checking initiative of 34 partners from academe, media and civil society for the May 9 elections to counter disinformation, noted that on misleading and deceptive narratives targeted both Marcos Jr. and Robredo, as well as their running mates.
The group said that fake election results came out as early as 8.27am, about two-and-a-half hours after the polls opened, and noted that the torrent of fake vote tallies set this year’s elections apart from the dominant election-day narratives in the 2019 mid-term polls.
False narratives were overwhelmingly pushed on Facebook, and occasionally on Twitter and YouTube, with nearly all utilising eye-catching graphics. Some tried to mimic the interface of mainstream media such as Rappler.
Meanwhile, the dean of San Beda Graduate School of Law, Father Ranhilio Aquino, said Catholics needed to stop bickering with Marcos’ supporters by labelling them “children of darkness.”
False narratives were overwhelmingly pushed on Facebook, and occasionally on Twitter and YouTube, with nearly all utilising eye-catching graphics. Some tried to mimic the interface of mainstream media such as Rappler
Tsek.ph
He wrote in a Facebook post: “It is regrettable that instead of being a centre of unity, the Church was made by some … to openly wade in the turbid waters of partisan politics,”
Father Aquino wrote, “The Church is only one authority among many and the exhortations of bishops will be taken as ‘specialist’s advice’ among others. For all the unconcealed involvement of clerics in partisan politics, it is clear that the people chose to follow other authorities.”
Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, said that Robredo may not have won the election, but Marcos Jr. could not steal the dream and spirit her supporters had acquired during the campaign.
“Let us protect from any plunderer the dream that struck us. Let’s all go back to the future that we’ve always been dreaming of,” Archbishop Villegas added.
Radio Veritas Asia reported that Archbishop Villegas visited the PPCRV Command Centre at the University of Santo Tomas on May 12.
“Many thanks for the genuine and honest service from our youth volunteers,” the archbishop said.
“They are so young and they are so heroic, they are so generous and I am really touched and inspired,” he said.
“Her mission was to wake us up. If Leni won, do you really think she would be able to change the mindset of our government?” Bishop Rey Evangelista of Imus, Cavite, said, adding, “I think we would expect so much more from her that we would complain about each and every mistake or problem that she is unable to solve.”
Bishop Evangelista said, “I think God used Leni to show us that if we unite we are capable of great things. My thinking is that God sent Leni to make us realize that there is an innate goodness in the Filipino. Each Filipino has the ability to rise above oneself.”
