Red flags in the BARMM vote

In Maluso, Basilan, over 16,000 ballots – about half of the entire voting population in the town – were found to have been pre-shaded.

Fortunately, the ballot tampering was discovered before voting started for the first parliamentary election in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

But the issue raises red flags that must be addressed as the 2028 general elections approach.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) quickly sent replacement ballots and placed Maluso under its control along with Cotabato City, where armed violence marred the eve of the vote.

Basilan Gov. Mujiv Hataman told “Storycon” on One News on Monday, election day, that the ballots in Maluso were in the custody of the municipal treasurer, as provided by law. The treasurer is an employee of the municipal government, whose mayor is Hataman’s brother Kaiser. The mayor belongs to the governor’s rival party along with another brother, Basilan Vice Gov. Hadjiman “Jim” Hataman-Salliman.

Poll watchers were not allowed by town hall personnel to enter the area where the supposedly sealed boxes containing the ballots were stored, Mujiv Hataman told us.

He said he had an idea of who was behind the pre-shading and the beneficiaries, but he declined to name names. The municipal treasurer is surely among those who will be held responsible. The governor also did not know the security arrangement for the ballots; military personnel patrol only the streets.

Looking at the tampered ballots in plastic packs, I thought they looked quite easy to take out of their “sealed” packaging. Comelec Chairman George Garcia told us on Storycon that the ballots are shipped off nationwide packed in plastic and contained in strong cardboard boxes that are sealed.

I don’t think there’s any cardboard so strong it can’t be penetrated by a box cutter. With determination and conspiracy among the right people, the ballots can be obtained for pre-shading.

What if this happens on a wide scale in 2028? What if it had happened in 2022 and 2025, with no one noticing?

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Garcia told us that the Comelec was looking into the problem while tracing the culprits behind the pre-shading. He warned that such acts could constitute electoral sabotage, a non-bailable offense that can warrant life in prison.

Sadly, as we are seeing in the current plunder cases, “non-bailable” is negotiable – natatrabaho. With the right surname and connections, even when convicted by the Sandiganbayan, bail can be posted until the ruling is reversed by the Supreme Court after over a decade. Even if a conviction is affirmed by the SC, the convict may be deemed by the courts to be too old, or physically or cognitively infirm to go to prison.

With poll cheats not scared of indictment for a “non-bailable” offense or the prospect of life in prison, opportunities for poll fraud must be plugged ASAP.

The ballot pre-shading is on top of the chronic afflictions of Philippine elections: murder, armed intimidation, laughable campaign finance rules and vote-buying.

Garcia was glad to inform us that there were hardly any complaints of vote buying in the BARMM. Except for one, and what a big fish the accused offender is: no less than the former chairman of the Comelec, Sheriff Abas.

An online post showing Abas’ sample ballot attached to three P1,000 bills prompted the Comelec to conduct a probe.

Vote buying is a two-way street. Telling needy folks not to accept cash and other freebies from candidates can be as difficult as stopping the politicians from buying votes. Rivals can monitor each other – which won’t work if both are engaged in vote buying.

What people can monitor is that the cash being used to buy votes won’t come from public funds in the form of ayuda or state-funded assistance.

There’s a broad range of politicized ayuda that Congress, despite the scandal over systematic plunder through creative budgeting, can’t afford to let go in the 2027 outlay.

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Security forces and the Comelec reported that the BARMM election was generally peaceful.

This may be news to the foreign observers who were trapped in their accommodations on the eve of the vote as gunfire erupted in Cotabato City, seat of the BARMM government. About 100 foreigners went to BARMM to observe the conduct of the vote.

Lawyer Benedicto Bacani, executive director of the Institute for Autonomy and Governance, attributed the gun violence partly to the stalled decommissioning of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Bacani told Storycon yesterday that the decommissioning process suffered from a lack of transparency and accurate baseline data, with authorities unable to verify who among the MILF fighters were actually turning in their weapons for full reintegration into the social mainstream.

The unfinished decommissioning is being used for political leveraging, Bacani pointed out. But he remains hopeful about prospects for peace in the BARMM following the parliamentary election.

“Peaceful” can be relative. This being the BARMM, five deaths with 18 wounded from gun violence and a grenade explosion, plus armed intimidation of voters, can be considered relatively peaceful.

But multiply similar armed attacks nationwide in 2028, in the light of ever deepening political polarization, and the upcoming general elections won’t be considered peaceful even in relative terms.

Especially if pre-shading of ballots becomes as prevalent nationwide as vote-buying and the stranglehold of dynasties on their turfs.

These threats to the integrity of the vote must be addressed decisively before the 2028 elections.