2022 Philippine President Election Observation
發布時間 2022.09.12, AT 01:46 PM
🔥 2022 Philippine President Election Observation 🔥
Taiwan Observation Election Group Report
On the 9th of May 2022, the Philippines held its once every six-year presidential election. Month-long overseas absentee voting was held in Taipei and Kaohsiung in Taiwan. Under the approval of the Philippines’ Election Commission, polling stations were monitored by Citizen Congress Watch (CCW) and seven experts from Taiwan Asia Network for Free Election (TANFREL) with administrative procedures in place to ensure clean and fair voting. This included resolving the fear of corruption and human rights violations by being truthful and transparent throughout the whole process.
The president of CCW, Zeng Jian-yuan, stated that “The Philippines’ presidential election has begun this morning and the electoral result is soon to be finalized. The overseas absentee voting for Filipinos in Taiwan has been a long-term discussion and this rare opportunity allowed Taiwan to observe and become more aware of the electoral voting procedure in terms of postal and e-voting of its neighboring countries, which is worth studying and learning about for Taiwan.”
The Philippine election in 2022 will officially elect the president, vice president, senators, and other local positions, including city mayors and provincial governors. With a population of around 1 billion, approximately 66 million Filipinos have registered to vote, breaking the country’s highest record in history, according to the Philippines Election Commission. A total of 1.7 million overseas Filipino citizens were able to exercise their right to vote. Within these voters, 72,503 are registered in Taiwan, second only to Hong Kong at 93,625 in the Asia-Pacific region. Among them, 47,854 voted at the Manila Economic and Culture Office in Taipei, and another 24,649 voted at the Manila Economic and Culture Office in Kaohsiung.
CCW was appointed by the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) to observe the Philippine election in 2022. ANFREL was established in November 1997 based in Bangkok, Thailand. With its 25 years of operation, ANFREL has become the most important election observation organization in Asia, with its three-core purpose of promoting election observation, capacity building and campaign and advocacy, pushing Asia-Pacific countries to democratize and has participated in many important elections events in Asian countries. In the past, CCW has assigned its staff to support ANFREL in several Asian nations’ election observation missions, and it officially joined ANFREL in 2011 as Taiwan’s sole member.
ANFREL Honorary Chairman Hong Yao-nan pointed out that, “Since 2011, Philippines has adopted its electronic vote counting system by being one of the few countries in Asia that counts ballot digitally aside from Mongolia and India. With the Philippines election’s polling station for oversea absentee being held in Taiwan, this is the first time that Taiwan has to operate the vote counting machine. However, the electronic system has a reputation for having security flaws with ballots being omitted, spoiled and erased. In addition, there’s also serious concern regarding disinformation in this election, especially issues concerning the ‘right to interpret history.’”
The Philippine overseas absentee voting poll held in Taiwan gave the country the opportunity to obverse different electing and voting systems up close, as Taiwan has yet to implement absentee voting, overseas postal voting, advance polling, and e-voting, but is often brought into discussion when it comes to any election. As a result of the Philippine 2022 election having polling stations in Taiwan, CCW and ANFREL held a joint press conference to share the result of the election with the public. Through professional and objective analysis, Taiwan could retain this knowledge and build a solid foundation in preparation for future elections.
The deputy executive director of CCW, Gan Shun-ji, said, “There are various reasons that contributed to the low voters' participation rate for this election in Taiwan, as there are only two polling stations in the whole country, one being in Taipei and the other in Kaohsiung, which increases the cost of travelling for Filipino citizens. And with the outbreak of COVID-19, suggesting that many employers were discouraging their workers from the Philippines to vote, otherwise they will have to conduct a swab test or be quarantined for three days without pay.”
Gan concluded, “Currently no international election observers have been authorized in Taiwan’s elections. Only domestic election observers from different political parties have been authorized. International observers are free from bias and will provide a fair and just assessment report globally, as they are disassociated from domestic political parties. Therefore, we urge Taiwan to establish an international election observation system to improve election quality and public confidence.”