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Election survival guide for journalists

Today, let’s all exercise our right to choose people who will lead our country.

Pray that this election will be peaceful and will reflect the will of the people.

As we move to the age of automation, which is supposed to lessen fraud, it seems that there are things of the ugly past that persist up to this day. Like private armies and harassment of media.

Ed Montalvan of Mindanao Currents reports in VERA Files CoveritLive that two cameramen of IBC-13 were mauled, their cameras taken away, while recording two candidates distributing money in Camiguin in Northern Mindanao.

With television and internet, the public is apprised of what is happening all over the country in real time. Media is not alone in bringing news to the public. There are thousands of citizens all over the country doing journalist work.

Ipagdasal natin ang matagumpay na eleksyon bukas.

Sa ating pagboto bukas, ipagdasal natin na maging mapayapa at maayos ang eleksyun, kasama na ang bilangan.

Ipagdasal natin na ang resulta ng eleksyun ay siya talagang kagustuhan ng taumbayan. Na sana ang gusting maggulo at magmani-obra ng resulta ng eleksyun katulad ng nangyari noong 2004 na eleksyun ay hindi magtatagumpay.

Kahit sino ang mananalo, basta malinis lang ang eleksyun, madali tanggapin.

Botohin natin ang gusto nating kandidato. Kung ano man ang rason ng iyong pagboto, personal man kung ano man, karapatan mo yun. Gayundin, respetuhin nyo din ang karapatan ng ibang tao na pumili ng gusto niyang kandidato kahit iba sa gusto nyo.

Sa bise presidente, iboboto ko si Mar Roxas.

Comelec affirms Vivienne Tan’s candidacy

A friend asked me to inform residents of Quezon City, district I that Comelec has made its final decision: Vivienne Tan is qualified to run for a seat in the House of Representatives. Here’s his report:

Thanks to blogneffy.blogspot.com for this photo
Thanks to blogneffy.blogspot.com for this photo
The Commission on Elections, meeting en banc, junked the motion for reconsideration filed by Congressman Bingbong Crisologo seeking the disqualification of Vivienne Tan as an independent congressional candidate in District 1, Quezon City.

All seven commissioners concurred that “Vivienne Tan possesses all the qualifications and none of the disqualifications as candidate for Member of the House of Representative for the First District of Quezon City.”

In a statement to media, Tan, daughter of taipan Lucio Tan, thanked the Comelec for “upholding the spirit of the law.”

“Mr. Crisologo knows that his appeal to disqualify me as a candidate has no legal basis. But he relentlessly filed appeal after appeal, using this to spread rumors of my disqualification and discourage voters from choosing me to be their representative,” Tan said.

The lawyers of Tan, meanwhile, said the order of Court of Appeals to delist Vivienne Tan as a qualified voter in District 1, Quezon is null and void and without legal force and effect.

P for Patience,not People Power

In the presentation of Mahar Mangahas of Social Weather Station of public opinion on the May 10 election, there were items that are very relevant in the wake of calls for People Power by some sectors which has become louder with the malfunctioning of the Precinct Count Optical Scan or PCOS, the thing that holds the future of Philippine democracy.

One item showed the high expectations of the people for Monday’s elections. SWS asked their opinion last February on the “Expected accuracy of the vote-counting machine at one’s precinct in the 2010 elections compared to the past elections.”

Twenty-five percent said “definitely more accurate” and 57 percent said “probably more accurate.” That’s a very high of 82 percent of Filipinos putting their trust on the still untested election automation. Only three percent were non-believers and 14 percent said “probably not more accurate.”