BY IME SORNITO and RUBY SILUBRICO
ILOILO City – Despite alleged incidents of vote-buying and harassment, the synchronized barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections across Western Visayas were “generally peaceful,” according to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Police Regional Office 6 (PRO-6).
The regional election office counted seven reported vote-buying cases – four in the Iloilo municipalities of Barotac Viejo, San Rafael, Mina, and Concepcion, two in Aklan’s Nabas and Ibajay towns, and one in La Castellana, Negros Occidental.
According to Atty. Tomas Valera, acting Comelec-6 director, 14 persons were involved in the alleged vote-buying, eight of whom were in Barotac Viejo.
“Most of these alleged cases involved money and grocery items,” said Valera.
Vote-buying is a violation of Section 261 of the Omnibus Election Code.
The PRO-6 had a record of the alleged vote-buying in Nabas, Aklan, specifically in Barangay Union.
Policemen arrested a suspect around 8:55 a.m. on May 13 – 60-year-old Melchor Magallanes – after they were alerted by a barangay councilman.
Magallanes could not be reached for comment as of this writing.
The PRO-6 also had a record of a claim made by a certain Cherly Evangelista, 37, also of Nabas, alleging that around 11 a.m. on May 13 she, too, received a folded sample ballot containing P150 from the suspect.
But without formal complaints, Comelec could nothing, said Valera.
For vote-buying cases to prosper, there must be formal complaints and the complainants must present evidences, he stressed.
“Our office is open to receive complaints. But overall we had peaceful elections,” said Valera.
Comelec-6 also received information of vote-buying in Dumangas, Iloilo but there were no records in the municipal police station, said Valera.
“We heard allegations about these but none came forward to put their claims on record at the police station nor did anyone bring money allegedly used to buy votes as evidence,” said Chief Inspector Rene Obregon, Dumangas police chief.
According to Valera, reports also reached Comelec Region 6 about candidates’ rabid supporters arguing with one another.
But policemen assigned in voting centers were fast enough to deescalate the tension, said Valera.
There were a total of 114,385 candidates in the barangay and SK elections in Western Visayas, Comelec records showed.
Information reached the Comelec regional office, too, about a clubbing incident in a village of San Jose, Antique. Two men concealing their faces with bonnets reportedly hit a barangay captain with a hard object on the head.
As of this writing, however, Valera said it could not yet be ascertained if this was related to the election.
His office and the PRO-6 had not also received any security-related incidents in 135 villages classified as election hotspot.
“We will keep on monitoring these areas. We hope to maintain the peace,” said Chief Superintendent Cesar Hawthorne Binag, regional police director.
He also said the election in Boracay Island, Malay, Aklan was uneventful.
Boracay’s temporary closure resulted in a low turnout of voters. In Barangay Balabag alone with 7,371 registered voters, the voter turnout was pegged at only 40 percent.
Sajid Pelayo, the assigned Department of Education’s Supervising Official at Balabag Elementary School, said even before the 3 p.m. voting cutoff time, there were already few voters coming in.
Some registered voters in the barangay were displaced by the island’s closure and returned to their respective provinces, Pelayo explained.
Balabag has the second highest number of registered voters in Boracay and Malay town next to Manoc-manoc with 11,170 registered voters, based on Comelec data.
Barangay Yapak, meanwhile, had 3,370 registered voters.
In Manoc-manoc, a lesser number of voters was also observed.
The bulk of voters trooped to the Manoc-manoc Elementary School in the morning but their number dwindled around noontime. (With a report from the Philippine News Agency/PN)
