Cebu, Philippines – A team of foreign election observers were stopped on Monday afternoon by soldiers of the 78th Infantry Batallion of the Philippine Army near the town of Tuburan, 96.7 kilometers northwest of Cebu City.
According to Elizabeth Hendrickson, a member of the Cebu team of the People’s International Observer’s Mission (IOM), the soldiers listed down their names and took their pictures without their consent.
The 19-man group was held for 15 minutes at a checkpoint along the national highway.
Cebu Daily News (CDN) tried to get the reaction of Colonel Jefferson Omandam, Central Command spokesman, but the army official could not be reached by telephone. CDN also called Camp Lapu-Lapu, but the calls went unanswered.
Hours before the Tuburan incident, the team was also stopped at another checkpoint in Barangay (village) Ginabasan, Asturias town. The checkpoint, according to the delegates, was also manned by elements of the 78th IB.
Rev. Rey Gelloagan of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) said he did not object to the checkpoints because “they were only supposed to see if we had firearms with us.”
But listing down the names of the foreign observers and taking their pictures without permission were forms of harassment, he said.
Gelloagan is also a co-convenor of Kontra-Tikas, the group that invited the foreign observers to Cebu.
“When we refused to have our pictures taken, the soldiers asked again if they could take the pictures for souvenir,” Hendrickson, who is a member of the English Lutheran Church in the United States, said. “They took our pictures anyway, even without our consent.”
Minerva Gutierrez, a Mexican citizen based in Canada and a member of the Quebec Solidaire, a political party, said that she felt the military were “disrespectful” by the manner of their questioning.
Hendrickson said they asked the soldiers to show a written order for taking their pictures and names, “but they could not show us any.”
The IOM Cebu team came from a visit in Toledo City, which the team earlier cited as a poll hotspot.
According to Gelloagan, ballot boxes in the city were not locked when they were transported from the precincts to the canvassing areas.
“When we spoke to the authorities there, they had different stories,” Hendrickson said.
The IOM Cebu team will present their observations and evaluation in a press conference on Wednesday. They will also fly to Manila later this week to meet with the other delegates of the IOM assigned to different regions.
The IOM Cebu team is part of a 25-member delegation of foreign observers dispersed to ten poll hotspots in seven regions across the country. /UP MassCom Intern Medora Nimfa Barcena Quirante
