PRESS STATEMENT
May 20, 2022
With less than a month left before the Presidential-Vice-Presidential proclamation – questions and vulnerabilities to the automated system, uncovering the dubiousness of electoral mandate, and exposing electoral fraud should be exhausted.
“The Marcos-Duterte tandem won amid huge doubts about the integrity of elections. There is Duterte-appointed COMELEC feared ‘preprogramming’ of the Smartmatic vote-counting machines combined (VCM) with 321 cases of VCM errors, 12-hour system glitch, 1800 malfunctioned VCMs, 112 cases of illegal campaigning, “unofficial quick count” given to the media, machine-pattern of vote count increases and distribution of votes, as well as armed coercion, harassment, and red-tagging, especially in the rural areas,” CPDG spokesperson Liza Maza said.
Marcos-Duterte’s by far triumph flagrantly obscures the extrajudicial killings, military overspending, red-tagging, corruption anomalies, onerous taxes, unemployment, low wages, economic crisis, and neoliberal policies, which the Filipino people had to bear under Marcos’ dictatorship and Duterte’s tyranny.
“A united President-Vice-President, overwhelming control of Senate and House of Representatives, and a large number of allies in the local governments and dynasties nationwide are alarming conditions for heavy-handed authoritarian rule. These conditions mirror a robust grip on political power similar to the Marcos dictatorship during Martial Law,” said Liza Maza.
Through the years, the elite government has allowed the rehabilitation of the Marcoses’ grandeur. Historical distortions, disinformation, misinformation, and mal-information mainly influenced the present political culture of the people, withal the rise of social media. The same government allowed an election system that lacks transparency.
CPDG, along with the broad democratic sector, will reject the Marcos-Duterte administration. The Marcos family should admit their sins and plundered wealth and face conviction over corruption and human rights violations. Duterte should be prosecuted for his bloody War on Drugs, and his case at the International Criminal Court be pushed forward.
“We, the civil society, and other technical experts challenge the COMELEC to prove that the transpired election was clean and honest. We should be allowed to participate in the auditing, counting, transmission, and collation of vote counts to remove doubts about electoral transparency,” Maza ended. #