Namfrel reaffirms role in polls

Reasserting its role as one of the country's major election watchdogs, the National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) assured its active participation in the country's first automated elections in May – with or without accreditation from the Commission on Elections.

In a press conference this morning at the AIM Conference Center, Namfrel chairperson Jose Cuisia Jr. said Filipinos can count on the watchdog's involvement in the coming polls.

“Namfrel volunteers affirm its role and importance to be a real citizen's watchdog. Our contributions to the conduct of free, fair, and credible elections, in the Philippines as well as many parts of the world, have earned us respect from past administrations, and trust from the people,” Cuisia said.

“Whether the Melo Comelec accredits us or not, the NAMFREL spirit is alive in all of us, and Filipinos expect us to play a significant role in ensuring that the May 2010 elections will be free fair, and credible,” he added.

Cuisia said they will be filing a motion for reconsideration before the poll body to gain accreditation. In the event this fails, he said they will take matters to the Supreme Court.

“While we continue to work to get accredited to be able to do certain tasks that require Comelec approval, such as the proper conduct of a random manual audit as stipulated in RA9369, the Namfrel National Council and volunteers also recognize the fact that there are activities that we could get involved in that do not require Comelec accreditation,” Cuisia said.

“These encompass the whole election process and not just the audit, nor the parallel vote count that has become the niche of Namfrel since 1986. For those of you who have been with Namfrel from the very start, you would recall that prior to 1986, Namfrel was an omnipresent election watchdog that looked into the whole election process, in the process laying the blueprint that has been emulated and has given birth to election monitoring organizations not just in Asia but around the world,” he added.

The group also gave an assessment on the preparations for the automated polls, citing several points of concern. These include incessant timeline revisions and missed deliverables, queue mismanagement, lack of voters' education, flaws from mock polls and possible failure of data transmission, among others. - By Dino Maragay (Philstar News Service, www.philstar.com)