"Delaying schemes" raised in election-related seminar

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY , Philippines  — Journalists told officials of the Commission on Elections that some politicians may now be up with schemes set to disenfranchise supporters of their opponents who may no longer be able to cast votes during the elections next year.

The issue was among the topics that were raised by journalists to Comelec spokesman James Jimenez during the election-related seminar initiated by the Philippine Press Institute here.

A lawyer-journalist from Bohol said the plan is that the politician will make his supporters proceed and line up at their respective precincts early in the morning and once they will be allowed inside their polling places, they will intentionally cause delays so each of them will stay inside up to 20 minutes.

The purpose is that once the voting time will end at 6 p.m., the supporters of the opponent-candidates may not be able to cast their votes.

But Jimenez said that while the Board of Election Inspectors cannot compel the voters to speed up in filling up their ballots, they are empowered to let anybody go out of the voting place if found out that they are intentionally delaying their moves.

And since the printing of the ballots will already start by January, there were queries from the journalists as to what will happen if certain candidates would be “killed and Comelec will allow anybody to substitute him, and that his name could no longer be included in the ballots.”

Jimenez explained that there is a policy that the votes cast for the candidate who was murdered could be translated as intended also for the persons who substituted him, although it was not yet clearly spelled out by the Comelec.

The Comelec has yet to release the guidelines on how to implement the elections scheduled on May 10. But it is expected that it will come out a few months from now.

The 33 journalists who attended the seminar here have assured that they will not twist the facts of their reports even if politicians provide them food during their press conferences, and in some occasions may provide them a ride in going to the venues of their election coverage.

Many provincial newspapers have been facing problems of lack of financial resources such as transportation for their reporters which prompted their reporters, in some instances, to hitch onboard vehicles owned by politicans.

Doing this puts the concerned journalists at risk because the candidate, they are sharing a ride with, may be a possible target of attacks by political nemesis.

Red Batario, executive director of the Center for Community Journalism and Development, shared some ideas on how mediamen could evade threats to their lives. —Rene U. Borromeo/MEEV    (FREEMAN NEWS)