Comelec says it has ‘acted upon’ 53 complaints of vote-buying

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has acted upon 53 complaints of vote-buying that were filed before its law department since Feb. 9, an official said Saturday.

Comelec commissioner Aimee Ferolino said the Comelec’s law department has received a total of 73 complaints, of which 53 were acted upon, 12 were docketed and the rest are under evaluation.

Apart from that, the inter-agency Task Force Kontra Bigay have received, through its Facebook page, 913 messages concerning vote-buying incidents, as well as 164 e-mails.

However, out of these, only 88 were valid reports that have been lodged officially, of which 49 have supporting evidence.

She explained that while there were many messages and e-mails received, most of them are only complaints about vote-buying incidents they saw or went viral online. There are also messages about their concerns about the Comelec itself, Ferolino added.

“Tina-tag lang, finoforward lang shine-share lang sa Facebook page. Some messages were just sent to some of the Commission to raise their complaints against the Commission itself,” Ferolino said.

Aside from that, many of those who reported vote-buying incidents were scared to testify, or they had no witnesses nor evidence.

“Madalas nagse-share lang sila ng sama ng loob, ‘yung bang gusto nila ng kausap, ‘yung bang some of their frustration against a certain candidate,” she said.

“So there’s nothing to act upon this sharing of kung ano ‘yung mga saloobin nila [whatever their sentiments are],” she added.

JPV