We at Democracy Watch Philippines laud the Supreme Court’s decision to follow due process and junk the electoral protest filed by Vice-Presidential hopeful Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr.
After nearly four years of litigation and attempts to inhibit justices from the proceedings, the Supreme Court of the Philippines, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, unanimously dismissed the protest filed by Marcos against current VP Leni Robredo.
This is a step forward for Philippine democracy as it affirms the integrity of our electoral system and, by extension, the soundness of our democracy as a whole.
Our present Automated Election System was adopted by the Commission on Elections to protect the Filipino vote. Since its adoption, our elections have been largely unmarred by fraud, as is seen in the election of President Aquino in 2010 and President Duterte in 2016. In fact, the continued positive ratings of President Duterte reflect the validity of automated elections.
While the 2019 elections faced some criticism, a Pulse Asia Survey commissioned by our partner Stratbase ADR Institute found that 87 percent of Filipinos said in a that they were satisfied with the automated polling system or the use of VCMs. They also expressed their trust in the results from automated elections (84 percent). Lastly, an overwhelming 91 percent of Filipinos are in favor of the continuous use of automated elections.
Governance experts and independent institutions are in agreement with the public. Dr. Ador R. Torneo and Prof. Topin S. Ruiz of the Department of Political Science at De La Salle University said their “study on the credibility of the 2019 elections “determined that the 2019 mid-term election can be considered as credible and well-run based on several factors.” Authors in the study cited improvements in transparency, low electoral protests, and positive reports from the PPCRV and the Comelec as indicators of success.
Comelec’s random manual audit verified the match between the digital results and the manual canvass through random sampling of precincts and manually cross-checking votes based on printed election returns. In the 2019 mid-term election, 715 clustered precincts were sampled, and the result was a 99.99% match between the automated results and the random manual audit’s data.
As our democracy moves into an uncertain future, we call on all Filipinos and democratic institutions to remain vigilant in upholding democratic principles and sound electoral practices. In the face of the election challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, we cannot afford to allow democracy to be stalled or subverted.
Democracy must go on.