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DFA: Overseas voting off to smooth start

MANILA, Philippines - Over 4,000 Filipino migrant workers were able to vote on the first day of voting under the overseas absentee voting scheme held over the weekend at various Philippine diplomatic missions abroad. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said a total of 4,141 Filipinos working overseas were able to vote without any glitches last Saturday.   The DFA’s Overseas Absentee Voting Secretariat reported yesterday that the Philippine consulate general in Hong Kong had the most...

When voters shift preference, candidates’ ads not far behind

MANILA, Philippines – While the focus of election campaign coverage has mostly been on the quantity and cost of political advertisements, one aspect that deserves an equally important analysis is the theme of the ads. The choice of ad themes has been strategic. The political ads of Sen. Manuel Villar Jr., the biggest campaign spender in the past months, best exemplify this.   When Sen. Villar was still the clear leader in the mid-2009 presidential surveys, his ads trumpeted that he has ...

‘Poll automation a black hole’ – Nick Perlas

MANILA, Philippines - Presidential candidate Nick Perlas expressed serious concern over the seeming “last minute” changes being done by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on paraphernalia for next month’s polls, saying the automated system is proving to be the “black hole” of the elections. Perlas told The STAR editors and reporters during a roundtable discussion yesterday that the Comelec slip-ups tended to show that “we are moving towards a failure of elections.”   Perlas stressed ...

2 LP bets file disqualification vs Villar over ‘vote-buying’

Two Liberal Party (LP) senatorial candidates have filed a disqualification case against Nacionalista Party (NP) standard-bearer Sen. Manny Villar Jr. for alleged vote-buying. LP senatorial bets Nereus Acosta and Martin Bautista on Thursday afternoon trooped to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) main office in Intramuros, Manila, to personally file the 11-page petition.   The two want Villar disqualified for distributing 20-peso bills to people during his political campaign sortie in ...

Online political campaigning: No rules or cap on costs

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) may be keeping tab on political ads in the broadcast and print media, but so far it has refrained from issuing guidelines on online campaigning. This has helped create a digital free-for-all among candidates in the upcoming polls who have made the so-called New Media yet another battleground for votes. These days, the number of Filipino Internet users is pegged at around 24 million and mobile phone users at around 63 million. Not surprisingly, candidates fo...