The 2022 national elections were marred by vote-buying complaints and malfunctioning vote-counting machines thanks to an incompetent Commission on Elections (Comelec).
Because of the large number of votes that poured in for Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., there have been suspicions of voter fraud, especially since on the day of the election there were dozens of reports of vote-counting machines breaking down due to faulty SD cards and voters not being able to cast their votes despite showing up at the polling precinct at the crack of dawn.
The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), however, has so far found no irregularities in the presidential race count based on its manual audit and verification of election returns.
Six years is ample time for the poll body to prepare for what has been called the “most crucial election” in recent Philippine history. Truly this one is for the history books as we will remember the Comelec’s gross incompetence which has caused the great ire and distress of many in the exercise of their constitutional right.
We will also remember the greatest offense the Comelec committed against the Filipino people: when it chose to side with the plunderers of the land and allowed another Marcos to run for president.
The Comelec dismissed the disqualification cases against Marcos Jr. for his conviction for failure to file his income tax returns, which is a crime of moral turpitude. The Comelec likewise refused to purge the presidential candidates’ list of nuisance candidates, among them Norberto Gonzales, Defense secretary of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the woman behind the “Uniteam” of Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte.
The Comelec allowed a generous yet confusing choice for the presidential and vice-presidential races (confusing for the electorate) all in the name of democracy, but treated Marcos Jr. and Madam Duterte with kid gloves when they refused to participate in its own debates.
Other than the election itself, the debates were the real and direct practice of democracy and the chief vehicle for educating the voters so that they could vote wisely on May 9; but the Comelec in true pushover fashion (or is it in true Marcos-partisan fashion?) accepted the “Uniteam’s” notice of regrets, and did not do anything to compel them to debate.
In 2016, Marcos Jr. was ahead in surveys of the vice-presidential race. but after the debates, he lost out to Robredo. This year, he not only refused to debate but he also turned down interviews by the independent news media, local and foreign. He gave access only to social media and so-called “influencers.”
The debates and independent news media interviews would have challenged and exposed as fiction his claims of the “Marcos golden era,” his Oxford education, his legislative record, and political accomplishments. But he refused lest the corrupt tyrant’s scion be exposed as without clothes.
The Marcoses’ campaign to reclaim Malacañang Palace didn’t even begin last year when Marcos Jr. filed his certificate of candidacy, but rather it was a devious scheme 31 years in the making, beginning with the family’s return to the Philippines after their exile, to their comeback to power in their bulwark in the north before finally settling in Congress.
And the trump card that ultimately changed the game in favor of the Marcoses? Social media disinformation.
When Marcos Jr. announced his candidacy for the presidency, the false narrative surrounding the country’s so-called “golden age” under his father’s regime, which was already festering in the realms of social media, gained even more momentum as diehard supporters continuously distorted and erased the facts of that dark period in Philippine history across different social media platforms.
Despite the news media’s best efforts to debunk and fact-check these false claims, there are still those who stubbornly reject the truth presented to them and instead resort to undermining the credibility of journalists. For them, “real news” comes from their trusted vloggers and a certain television network backed by an FBI-wanted, sex-trafficking pastor.
Meanwhile, the master of spin Marcos Jr. puts on a swaggering show, declining invitations to election forums and debates, decrying “fake news” against his ill-gotten wealth and estate tax cases, and denying reports by foreign media of him orchestrating a web of online disinformation despite strong evidence that suggests otherwise.
Earlier this year, Twitter suspended hundreds of accounts that were traced back to his supporters for violating the social media platform’s rules on manipulation and spam. And President Rodrigo Duterte, in vetoing the social media registration bill, which would mandate anyone creating a social media account to register their real name and phone number as well as penalize those using fictitious identities, only abetted further Marcos Jr.’s campaign of lies and deception.
So, now we find ourselves in a debauched déjà vu as another Marcos is set to inhabit Malacañang. A day after the elections, the Comelec en banc dismissed all disqualification cases against the junior Marcos. Not only is it a grave insult to the victims of Martial Law, but it is also a bastardization of our history as they turned a blind eye once more to the atrocities the Marcoses have committed to our nation and its people.
One cannot help but wonder what the country will look like under another Marcos administration. If the early reports of a children’s publishing house being red-tagged and the takedown of the Presidential Library and Museum website, which contains archival documents of Martial Law history, are any indicators then we must prepare for when the worst comes.
Marcos Jr.’s resounding message throughout his campaign was “unity.” Indeed, we need to unite as Filipinos to safeguard our democracy. We need to unite in the fight against disinformation. We need to unite to preserve our history so that we will remember, and the generations after, the name that stole, killed and destroyed thousands of lives.
Filipino novelist and labor organizer Carlos Bulosan said: “We must look for the mainspring of democracy, but we must also destroy false ideals… We must interpret history in terms of liberty. We must advocate democratic ideas.”
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty and so we remain vigilant.
Never again to the tyranny, corruption, and depredation of the Marcoses.
