What the Palawan plebiscite tells us about the "new normal" of voting

By Jelo Ritzhie Mantaring and Gem Marquez

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Last March 13, Palaweños went to their respective polling centers to vote for the “historic plebiscite” that will affect the potential future of Palawan.

The voting for the plebiscite was supposed to be held on May 11, 2020, but was delayed due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

President Rodrigo Duterte signed last April 5, 2020, the Republic Act. No. 11259, an Act that seeks to divide the Province of Palawan into three Provinces, namely: Palawan del Norte, Palawan Oriental, and Palawan Del Sur.

According to a report in Rappler, “voters in this plebiscite, which is manual, are being asked to write yes (oo) if they agree with the proposal, or no (hindi) if they disagree," while voting hours are only open from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The act intended to establish Taytay as Palawan del Norte’s capital and would consist of Coron, Culion, Busuanga, Linapacan, and El Nido.

On the other hand, Roxas will be the capital of Palawan Orienta, wherein Araceli, Dumaran, Cuyo, Agutaya, Magsaysay, Cagayancillo, and San Vicente will be part of the province.

Palawan del Sur, which was considered as the "mother province” was set to have Brooke’s Point as its capital. The province would consist of Aborlan, Narra, Quezon, Rizal, Española, Bataraza, Balabac, and Kalayaan. Pag-asa Island is the only barangay in the province located in the West Philippine Sea.

Comelec devised an arrangement plan for the March 13 plebiscite where safety protocols are still adhered to.

Isolation Polling Places (IPPS) was set up added along with regular precincts which are for resident voters who will show COVID-19 symptoms.

According to the Comelec, five individuals are only allowed to enter the precincts at any given time, where the wearing of facemasks is mandatory except for wearing of face shields.

However, according to the Legal Network for Truthful Elections (Lente) that while safety protocols were enforced, some of the voters were permitted to enter the polling centers without wearing face masks.

According to the National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), “NAMFREL observers reported that in general, election paraphernalia to be used in the plebiscite were received on schedule, polling precincts opened on time, and there was no significant delay in the start of voting.”

“Observers also note that the process appears well-organized, and anti-COVID protocols are being enforced and followed,” NAMFREL added.

Being the first electoral exercise held at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country, it is seen to be a “potential template” for conducting elections under strict safety health measures.

As of 5:30 p.m., March 16, 2021, the Commission on Elections’ Provincial Plebiscite Board of Canvassers announced that “no” vote prevailed in the plebiscite.

The Comelec posted the official partial results of the Palawan Plebiscite in their Facebook page last March 16, 2021, at 5:00 pm. The “yes” votes garnered 122,223, and 172,304 voted “no” that rejected the proposed Palawan division.

“The big lesson for the politicians who attempted to divide Palawan into 3 is to make sure that the desire actually came from the people. They need to consult and include the people from the beginning. The desire of a few cannot win over the desire of the majority.” pointed out by Cynthia del Rosario, campaigner of Save Palawan Movement, in an interview with Rappler.

Equalizer for the 2022 national elections

On the other hand, a former Comelec commissioner said that the Covid-19 pandemic will “level the playing field” for candidates as it will hinder conducting traditional campaign activities if it drags until the 2022 national elections.

Image source: Rappler

“A lot of moneyed candidates rely on big activities with big crowds like rallies, house to house, and sorties. By having a pandemic, you actually limit their advantage,” ex-Comelec commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said.

In a forum with journalism students, Larrazabal pointed out that social media would be a bigger tool in the 2022 national elections, citing that data mining could help in the campaign of candidates to specifically target voters.

“The attack is now pinpointed and not shotgun,” he said in Filipino. “Using the data you have mined before about the voters, their preference, their demographics, you can now use that as tools to finetune your campaign.”

The Economic Times defines data mining as “a process used to extract usable data from a larger set of any raw data.” Donald Trump, the United States president, reportedly had gained access to data of millions of Facebook users during his presidential campaign in 2016.

Allegedly, this was also the case in the 2016 campaign of President Rodrigo Duterte wherein he was rebranded as “a strong, no-nonsense man of action” through the Facebook data collected by Strategic Communications Laboratories, as reported by the South China Morning Post.

However, Larrazabal said voter education is still important to ensure a “fair, credible, honest” election, especially with the role of journalists to put out more information about candidates as “many voters are not diligent enough in voting.”

“It’s easy to manipulate voters to vote for or against a particular candidate by bombarding him with false information day in and day out,” Larrazabal said. “You have to turn the tide or at least a push back so that what will people see before or on election day is accurate and correct information.”

He also added the ongoing struggle of voter’s focus on the candidate’s personality rather than its platforms and issues of vote-buying could be addressed by voter education, although difficult as some poor voters “are not thinking long-term but short-term.”

“Your role [as a journalist] is important because you make people understand the importance of a single vote,” he said.

Should the 2022 elections be delayed?

Larrazabal expressed confidence that the Philippines could also conduct its 2022 national elections if the pandemic would stretch and there would be no need for its postponement as there is still more than a year to prepare.

“South Korea and other countries have conducted their elections, US will conduct their elections in November. This shows that if they can conduct elections, we can too,” the election lawyer said.

Larrazabal suggested to “take innovative steps” in finding a way to decongest polling places. He said Comelec should study what areas are congested and change locations from classrooms to basketball courts or other more spacious areas.

He also stressed that Congress should prioritize House Bill 7572 which allows the mail-in voting of the elderly in the 2022 national elections. And if they make legislations, “they have to do it fast, now.”

“It’s a microscopic way of looking at it but [it shows] that there are ways to finetune the process, to make the voting [process] lessen the contracting [of] the virus,” he said.