In a recent round table discussion with journalists, Commission on Elections Chair George Garcia called vote buying “the modern cancer of our democracy” as it admitted it is difficult to prosecute those involved in it, especially with the advent of digital wallets.
Vote-buying and vote-selling are prohibited under Section 261(a) of the Omnibus Election Code, a law enacted in 1985, way before mobile payment platforms were available.
“Our election laws were written for traditional cash handouts, not for GCash and Maya transactions,” Garcia said, adding “If we don’t act now, digital vote buying will become even harder to track and punish.”
He said that fortunately, the platforms themselves have imposed restrictions on the daily transaction limit until Election Day to help prevent election-related financial misuse.
Garcia added that they have put in place many actions which are presumed to be vote buying and vote selling.
For instance, people forming long lines to receive goods outside a house of a candidate is presumed to be vote buying. The mere possession on Election Day of indelible ink or any chemical that can remove indelible ink such as cuticle remover can be presumed an act of vote buying or selling.
Such safeguards have allowed the Comelec to file cases around 7,500 candidates, and prevented 253 winners from being proclaimed, with their cases still pending before courts.
“This is our only way to fight vote buyers and vote sellers if there’s still no law prohibiting what they are specifically doing,” Garcia said.
The reason why our election laws take too long to be updated is that politicians and their dynasties benefit from the many loopholes that are discovered when the law fails to adapt to the times. Until a miracle happens and the priorities of our country’s legislators shift from protecting their dynasties to ensuring that elections are conducted as fairly as possible, it is up to the Comelec to find creative ways to close the loopholes and counter the electoral malpractices that have become normalized and institutionalized in this country.
Until then, the Filipino electorate can only hope that the Comelec is up to the task.*
