Comelec teams up with Facebook to promote 2016 polls

MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has teamed up with social networking site Facebook to promote the May 9 local and national polls.

In a press briefing yesterday, Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista said collaborating with Facebook “will enhance our ability to reach out to millions of Filipinos who have made the network site a part of their daily life here and abroad.

“We are looking forward to working with Facebook to ensure that the thoughts and opinions of Filipino voters are made an integral part not only of debate but also of the elections, and with FB, we can see voters’ greater participation and meaningful engagement in the 2016 election,” Bautista said.

Elizabeth Hernandez, head of Facebook’s Public Policy for Asia Pacific, said the partnership would make it much easier for around 47 million Filipinos on Facebook to “engage in political processes and to make a real impact in these elections.

“We are excited by this partnership with Comelec. Filipinos log on to FB daily because they want to know and learn more about the candidates. They are also debating on different issues with their friends and the candidates also want to reach out to voters,” Hernandez said.

Katie Harbath, general manager of Facebook’s Political and Government Outreach Team, said they could help the Comelec “crowd source” the questions that would be presented to candidates during the debate the poll body is organizing with media organizations, including The STAR, TV5 and BusinessWorld.

Harbath assured the Comelec that Facebook could help encourage people to vote.

“We will be running our voter megaphone on election day over everybody in the Philippines over the age of 18. We will remind them that it’s election day and allow them to get more information by directing them to Comelec website.”

She said the platform could also serve as a venue for the Filipino people to express their opinions about elections, candidates and related issues but these are subjects to “terms and conditions.”

“When we look at conversation, we don’t look at positive or negative. We look at overall volume of conversation and discussions that we are having on Facebook. We have terms and conditions on what anybody can say on Facebook and that is the only rules and regulations that we have in terms of what can and can’t be said on our platform,” Harbath said.