By Diego Morra
Three weeks before the May 12, 2025 elections, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) hasn’t done anything to stop the publication of obviously dubious survey results by Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations (SWS), the former favoring the Duterte senatorial slate and the latter pushing the story that nine members of the Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipino (ABP) are in the winning column.
Comelec doesn’t know, or pretends not to know, that these surveys are all commissioned by partisans who pay hundreds of thousands of pesos per bang, and the polling firms might as well pull out their tracking favoring one party, say Bong Go, and then use their algorithm to make a seamless presentation of survey “results.” Both Cambridge Analytica and Trafalgar have crafted methodologies to come up with real-time surveys quicker than others, and these digitalized respondents will provide reactions in a jiffy. For face-to-face interviews, it may take up to 40 minutes to conduct the entire process. So there, your avatars, bots and artificial intelligence (AI) will deliver the results.
To excise the possibility of fabricating a bandwagon effect, the Comelec can resort to a ban on the publication of “polling results” three weeks before the elections. By prohibiting their dissemination, Comelec will be giving voters ample time to reflect, analyze and conduct their own cost-benefit analysis to kick out the popular but indolent and ignorant candidates, delete the partisans of Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio like Camille Villar and Imee Marcos (of course, Bong Go will never admit that he supports Sara), assess the performance of aspirants like Francis Tolentino, who has three masteral law degrees but has only two proposed bills to show, aside from providing the twerking damsels in a birthday party in Laguna; Bong Revilla, who has not returned the P124.5 million in pork barrel funds as directed by the Ombudsman; Willie Revillame (why is he running anyway, like Lito Lapid?); and the champion of POGOs—Sen. Pia Cayetano—who has yet to be endorsed by Robin Padilla, who moonlighted as Digong Duterte’s avid supporter in The Hague.
George Garcia, who had worked at the Comelec for the better part of his life, did criticize the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) for trying to dictate to him that progressive partylists be banned but he has not yet stopped this Duterte agency from meddling with the electoral campaign by filing terrorism financing cases against activists and getting soldiers to arrest campaigners in Northern Luzon. NTF-ELCAC has gone to town spreading canard against Gabriela, Kabataan, Bayan Muna, KMP, KMU and the Makabayan Coalition and even their propaganda beggars belief. They have also sent miniature coffins in Cebu to threaten farmer leaders active in campaigning for their partylist. These are despicable actions that Comelec should stop but could not.
Meanwhile, Garcia was chastised by the Supreme Court (SC) for preventing Smartmatic from joining the bidding for the supply of the automated election system (AES) for the 2025 elections on the basis of a US case, in which a former top Comelec official was accused of bribery. The ban against Smartmatic stuck, declared as operative fact and could never be undone. Thus came Miru System, which created a joint venture (JV) with St. Timothy Construction and two other companies and won an award for P17.99-billion, which critics claimed was onerous, given that Comelec only leased the untested voting equipment. Worse, St. Timothy withdrew from the JV after P2-billion was already paid by Comelec. Nagging questions also dog the 2022 elections over the dump of 20-million votes 12 minutes after the polling precincts closed, all of them via an internet address for which Comelec reportedly paid P2-billion, triggering a howl among experts who claimed such an address can be had for free. Garica also backtracked on a promise to open ballot boxes in Batangas polling precincts in response to allegations of digital fraud.
If Garcia were to be true to his mandate as the guardian of free, honest and transparent elections, then he should stop all attempts to create a bandwagon effect by both the Duterte and Marcos Jr. senatorial slates, tighten the screws on the alphabet soup of polling firms that gains purchase only during election periods. Nothing should stop the Comelec from looking into their research methods and their ties with political parties or groups that conveniently label themselves as such. Garcia was also subject to brickbats after allowing the printing of ballots before the SC ruled that the names of some disqualified candidates should be restored. It cost the poll body P150-million, not a small figure in a country where millions of families consider themselves poor.
Aside from going after candidates who have now been put on the griller by the Comelec, Garcia and his fellow commissioners should stand pat on the previous policy of the poll body that once a certificate of candidacy (COC) has been filed, all electoral aspirants must perforce be covered by campaign rules. The filing of the COC technically starts the campaign. It would be foolish on the part of the Comelec allow aspirants to distribute cash, movie tickets, bags of goodies and “ayuda” before the official start of the campaign. Well-heeled candidates have used this mindless “official campaign period” argument to buy votes, organize their own remittance service and offer medicines, food and other forms of assistance to beat their poorer rivals to the punch.
The Comelec should think that those who have less in cash must have more in law to cancel the advantage of political dynasties, traditional politicians and factions that control provincial, municipal and city governments for several decades. Similarly, the poll body must discipline agencies like NTF-ELCAC that have been rampaging nationwide as they propagate their visceral hatred of progressive partylists. NTF-ELCAC has the distinct role of gunning after Makabayan Coalition and progressive partylists while promoting their twin entries in the race—the Duterte bets under the banner of the stolen PDP-Laban and the ABP aspirants backed by Malacanang. Human rights advocates and progressives have every reason to complain that they are getting a raw deal. And the Comelec is not easing their pain. #
