Marcos Jr. calls for cooperation to ensure ‘free, fair, credible’ polls

MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. called for group cooperation to guarantee “free, fair, credible” elections in the Philippines.

Marcos made the remark as he graced the first-ever National Election Summit, organized by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), on Friday.

“I call for the active cooperation of stakeholders, experts, and civil society organizations to ensure free, fair, credible elections in our country, in strong partnership with an enlightened and informed citizenry,” Marcos said.

“Let us learn from the areas we need to improve and explore solutions to make things work better for our beloved country,” he added.

The Summit is a platform for national discussions and interaction among poll stakeholders in developing policies, plans, and programs in election administration, enforcement, and adjudication.

Before the National Election Summit, Marcos noted that preparatory consultations with various stakeholders were held across the country.

“From these pre-summit meetings, it has come to the attention that several reforms in the election process must be made and given these findings, let us take these matters seriously as the outputs obtained from these activities are indisputably significant,” the president said.

“Driven by the commitment to strengthen the people’s trust and confidence in the Comelec, I ask you to open yourselves to the recommendations of our experts and Filipino voters, who are [our] partners in ensuring free, orderly, honest, and credible elections,” he went on.

Marcos also said that poll results should be “accurate and unalterable” to keep the election’s sanctity.

The chief executive believes that positive reforms can be implemented with modern technologies.

“Now that we use modern technologies to advance and make our election system more reliable, I am sure that we can implement positive reforms and make election result transmission faster and maintain its accuracy,” he said.

The next election is slated for October as citizens will cast their votes for the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan polls.

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