Youth groups led by Kabataan Party-list staged an indignation rally at around 1 p.m. today to protest the the apparent manipulation of election results and various anomalies hounding the midterm elections.
Read the full story »
Latest press releases about Kabataan Partylist’s stands on issues confronting the youth and the nation, its latest campaigns, legislative measures and other activities.
Comprehensive feature articles by Kabataan Partylist with regard to current events and other pressing youth and national issues
Puzzled with Commission on Elections Chair Sixto Brillantes’ announcement that the official national canvassing will be suspended until 10 a.m. tomorrow, Kabataan Partylist President Terry Ridon said that it might be an early sign that Comelec is “really up to something.”
Numerous reports of malfunctioning PCOS machines, brown-outs, and delayed voting mar the first four hours of the midterm elections, confirming the fears of various election watchdogs and youth groups.
Various field reports from volunteers of Kabataan Partylist and election watchdog Kontradaya reveal several “anomalous situations” in polling precincts all over the country, further confirming the earlier assessment of youth groups that the Commission on Elections has failed to address major issues in the automated election system (AES).
“We are off to a bad start. The problems that we are facing this morning are not minor glitches of the AES; the sheer number of incident reports confirms earlier fears we have expressed. Both the Aquino government and Comelec are accountable for not addressing PCOS problems beforehand. Massive electoral fraud is inevitable, and Team PNoy stands to gain the most from this electoral brouhaha,” said Kabataan Partylist President Atty. Terry Ridon.
There have been several notable incidents reported in the first few hours of the elections, including the lack of serial numbers of ballots in Pandi, Bulacan; the declaration of failure of elections in some parts of the Cordillera Administrative Region, not even a single functioning PCOS machine in Batasan Hills, Quezon City, 800 ballots in Compostela Valley have been switched with those intended for Baguio, 95% of PCOS machines in Lipa, Batangas reportedly malfunctioning, 8 out of 12 PCOS machines for Zamboanga not arriving in time for the elections, polling in more than 100 precincts all over the country delayed due to defective PCOS machines, and chaos and overcrowding in large precincts.
Comelec Spokesperson James Jimenez earlier told the media that there are only 2 malfunctioning PCOS machines so far and when asked regarding the coverage of anomalies and problems he said that it was “irresponsible reporting” on the part of the media.
“Jimenez should have his eyes and ears checked. Blaming the media to cover up the fiasco wrought by malfunctioning PCOS machines is an old trick in the book. His efforts to assure the public that the election is successful thus far can easily be debunked not only by the media but by the testimonies of inconvenienced voters that are experiencing the election issues first-hand,” Ridon said.
Ridon said that with the current state of the elections, it is easy to deduce that “massive, organized and planned” electoral fraud is currently taking place.
“All these reports are susceptible to CF Card mismatch, meaning that the internal memory of PCOS machines may have been switched beforehand, also, the overwhelming number of rejected ballots is cause for concern as there will be many disenfranchised voters. PCOS machines that have been replaced may have already been inputted with a fixed number of votes for a certain candidate. As of this morning there are already too many possible fraudulent scenarios all of which both the Aquino administration and Comelec have failed miserably to address.”
“There are only 5,000 back up PCOS machines for the entire country, how can this compensate the amount of failures and errors occurring massively across the country? Also, how can we be sure that these spare machines have not been tampered with?” Ridon asked.
Kabataan Partylist called on the youth and concerned citizens to heighten vigilance on the expected forms of fraud and other violations in their localities and play an active role in keeping the elections as clean as possible.
“The youth all over the country will remain alert for reports of election violence, fraud and other forms of violations of voter’s rights. If what we are seeing now is any indication of how this election is going to end, we must be ready to take action against those accountable for these nefarious activities,” said Ridon.###
Deviating from the traditional meeting de avance of traditional politicians, youth partylist Kabataan has set up another innovation in Philippine politics – an online event dubbed by youth leaders as the “Tweeting de Avance.”
“Instead of spending millions of pesos to finance a large-scale extravaganza to cap our election campaign trail, we opted to harness social media’s emerging power for Kabataan Partylist’s tour de force. Not only is it economical, but it also highlights the youthful character of our campaign,” said Kabataan Partylist President and first nominee Terry Ridon.
Tweeting de Avance’s concept is pretty simple – a small gathering will be held at Leona Art Restaurant in Teacher’s Village, Diliman, Quezon City at around 5 p.m., which will be attended by various supporters of Kabataan Partylist and online opinion leaders. The event will then be live streamed online. Supporters are also asked to tweet their support for Kabataan Partylist using the unified hashtag #17KABATAAN starting 5 p.m. today.
The partylist also enjoined chapters in various countries such as Canada and the United States to throw their support by joining the Twitter conference.
“Even if we have a limited campaign budget, we believe that we can still create ripples both online and offline if we tap the support of thousands upon thousands of youth and students who use Twitter,” Ridon said.
Tweeting de Avance caps off Kabataan Partylist’s campaign trail for the 2013 midterm elections.
“With the whole youth sector supporting the sole youth representation in Congress, we are confident that we can indeed level up our representation in the 16th Congress by winning not just one, but three seats in Congress,” Ridon ended.###
Three days before the national midterm elections, youth groups led by Kabataan Partylist stormed the national office of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) in Intramuros at 4 p.m. today along with election watchdog Kontradaya to denounce the commission’s continued inaction on the issues hounding the automated election system (AES).
“Unlike what Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes wants the public to believe, there is indeed cause for alarm with regard to the upcoming automated polls. Day after day, issues on the AES continue to float – from dysfunctional PCOS machines, to signal jammers, the recent blackout in Luzon, and now, the lack of a transparent independent review despite the turnover of the source code. It is truly difficult not to speculate that COMELEC is up to something sinister,” said Kabataan Partylist President and first nominee Terry Ridon.
COMELEC has continuously placated criticisms against the AES, despite not being able to adequately address issues raised by the election watchdogs, which include:
• ‘Pirated’ software for PCOS machines
• Unfixed bugs in PCOS machines
• Ballot design-CF cards data mismatch
• The disabling of voter verification system in PCOS machines
• The lack of digital precautions against election return tampering (e.g. digital signing)
• Errors in transmission programs
• The issue of signal jammers or the remote manipulation of election result transmission
• Lack of clear mechanisms for election protests
“There are only three days before the elections, and the same concerns raised years before have remained unanswered. Not only does COMELEC seem to be pussyfooting on the issues – it is now becoming apparent that massive electoral fraud through the AES is about to happen in favor of the administration ticket,” Ridon said.
The youth leader also denounced COMELEC’s continued harassment of progressive partylists Kabataan and Piston by delaying the decision in the disqualification case lodged against them. Reports from COMELEC insiders reveal that the commission might release a decision any moment before election day.
Kabataan and Piston Partylists, member of the progressive Makabayan bloc, are among the partylists charged by COMELEC for allegedly violating sections of Comelec Resolution No. 9615, specifically on the posting of campaign materials in public places.
Despite showing proof of compliance to election rules, along with photo documentation and eyewitness accounts, COMELEC has still pursued the case against Kabataan and Piston, showing that it is “hell-bent on disqualifying” the said groups, no matter how flimsy the excuse, Ridon said.
“COMELEC’s continued harassment of progressive partylists only show the commission’s manifest intent to manipulate the elections in favor of their overlords in Malacanang. Until now, COMELEC has not yet junked the case even if it does not hold water, in fact and in law. It seems that the commission is holding on to its cards up until the last day of the elections – all just to please its boss in the Palace and continue to harass the progressive bloc,” Ridon added.
“Disqualifying Kabataan is tantamount to robbing the youth – which comprise over a third of the country’s population – their right to be represented in the country’s legislature. However, let it be known by COMELEC and the Aquino regime that the youth is not taunted by the political persecution that has been systematically perpetrated against us and we are ready to defend what little democratic space we have left in this country,” Ridon said.###
The midterm elections provide a crucial opportunity for young people to put forward our own agenda – an alternative agenda – one that builds on the struggles of other sectors of society, from landless farmers, to fresh grads eager for employment, to overseas workers laboring to keep their families back home alive.
At the heart of our campaigns is a call for a government truly representative of the majority of our people, for the benefit of our people. The hope for a decent future for ourselves and our families is a hope we all share.
Thus, in an effort to harness the collective power of the youth, we bring forth the youth sector’s 9-point agenda for 2013 and beyond – challenges that we present not only to candidates in the upcoming polls but also to our fellow youth and our countrymen.
1. QUALITY EDUCATION FOR ALL – Education is a cornerstone of national development, and is often held up as the last hope for many poor families struggling to break out of the cycle of poverty. Yet, there exists policies that hinder the youth from finishing school, forcing our families to work long hours – and in some instances take lives. Such policies include the deregulated nature of tuition and other fees, dwindling state funding to public education, and anti-student policies such as the “no late payment” and “no permit, no exam” policy.
Proposed solutions of the current administration to the worsening education crisis include adding two years to the basic education curriculum under the K to 12 program, and the so-called “rationalization” of funding for public higher education. However, the youth view these touted solutions as detrimental policies that would further aggravate – rather than solve – the current education crisis.
Thus the youth pushes for genuine solutions to the chronic crisis in education by calling for greater state funding for education, the scrapping of unsound policies that led to unabated hikes and the spiraling cost of education, the eradication of anti-student schemes that add to the burden of students, and the reorientation of the education towards being nationalist, scientific, and mass-oriented, rather than serving as a tool to fuel the global need for cheap labor.
2. DECENT JOBS FOR THE YOUTH AND THE PEOPLE – Nearly every administration since the founding of the Republic has been quick to praise itself for stalwart economic management, amid booming growth rates. Yet such growth has mostly been confined to the stock market, tied to OFW (Overseas Filipino Worker) remittances or dependent on tourism and real estate investment – and has rarely, if ever, resulted in the creation of real, long-lasting, decent-paying jobs on the ground. The national economy, geared as it is toward foreign markets and dependent on foreign investments and OFW remittances, has failed to develop thriving local industries.
Nor has growth been inclusive. Profits of major corporations and CEO bonuses have soared while workers’ real wages have stagnated or declined over the decades.
Repressive labor policies from deregulation to contractualization have left workers in vulnerable straits, unable to find decent employment should their contracts expire. According to the Labor Force Survey of the National Statistics Office (NSO), the combined ranks of the jobless and underemployed – some 10 -12 million Filipinos of working age - today make up 11 per cent of the country’s total population. The youth comprises half of this figure.
To solve joblessness and the proliferation of harsh labor conditions, the youth calls for an end to contractualization, deregulation, harassment of trade unions, and other regressive labor policies. To create and sustain decent jobs in the country, concrete plans for national industrialization must be set and implemented. The youth is also one with the labor sector in calling for a P125 across-the-board wage increase and an end to the government’s labor export policy, which has left the economy dependent on OFW remittances.
3. A JUST AND HUMANE SOCIETY – Any mention of national development is incomplete without acknowledging the full spectrum of civil, political, social and economic rights that should be guaranteed to all citizens regardless of class, status, religion, ethnicity or political inclination. Yet human rights in the government’s development plans are noted only in passing, and while the administration pays lip service to ‘’inclusive growth,” the facts on the ground speak of a different reality.
Human rights defenders, trade unionists and activists of all stripes have long been assaulted on all fronts for their work. Human rights watchdog KARAPATAN reports over a thousand cases of human rights violations in the past decade, with 137 extrajudicial killings under Aquino’s presidency alone, alongside other breaches of civil and political rights: 14 enforced disappearances, 72 victims of torture, 343 cases of illegal arrest with or without detention, at least 7,717 families left homeless by violent demolitions, and 30,260 cases of forced evacuations of low-income or indigenous communities from lands marked for mining, commercial development or real estate. A total of 430 political prisoners remain unaccounted for, with 148 arrested under the current administration.
The youth stands firm in demanding justice for all victims of human rights violations. We strongly urge authorities to “surface” all desaparecidos, free all political prisoners, and end military abuse both in the cities and the countryside. There is no better barometer of an administration’s commitment to rid itself of a legacy of corruption and impunity than to crack down on the murders of Filipino citizens committed by the military troops sworn to defend them under its watch.
4. IMPROVEMENT OF HEALTHCARE AND OTHER SOCIAL SERVICES – With millions faced with chronic job insecurity in an economy that has failed to provide real jobs on the ground, the need for a social safety net – one that provides at least basic social services for the majority and subsidies for the poor– is more urgent than ever.
Despite touted economic growth, the disparity in the lives of the rich and the poor has widened. Self-rated poverty has increased from 9.1 million households in 2011 to 11.1 million last year according to Social Weather Station (SWS) surveys, while the combined wealth of the 40 richest Filipino individuals has more than doubled, from $ 24.6 billion to $ 47.7 billion – or 21 per cent of national GDP.
Instead of improving social services such as health and housing, solutions offered by most administrations up to the present smack of privatization. Public hospitals and services are treated as government liabilities, and are opened to privatization through the administration’s much-hyped public private partnership (PPP) program. The poorest of the poor, meanwhile, are being shortchanged through the continued implementation of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) scheme, a moribund solution offered to families long mired in poverty.
The youth believes that to improve social services, the government should set its priorities straight. Present and future leaders should throw away the notion that greater spending for social services is an unnecessary liability. Rather, we should take to heart that improving social services through higher funding plays a major role in safeguarding our countrymen’s welfare. Improvements in healthcare delivery, especially for the poorest sectors of society for example, would provide concrete benefits for the youth and the general public. Higher spending for social services is tantamount to the betterment of the Filipino people’s wellbeing.
5. ENVIRONMENTAL PRESERVATION – The Philippines has always been considered the pearl of the orient, known for its verdant mountains and seas that teem with biodiversity. Yet with the intensifying exploitation of our natural resources by foreign companies and their business associates in the country, the treasures of our lands and seas are rapidly deteriorating.
This plunder of our natural resources – brought about by illegal logging, large-scale mining, industrial fishing, poaching and other forms of atrocities – are met with token moves by the current administration. Laws and decrees that should supposedly help preserve the environment – such as the Mining Act of 1995 – has instead fast-tracked and legitimated the destruction of our natural resources.
The youth, as heirs to the county’s veritable natural resources, vehemently oppose the unrestrained plunder of our environment. Environmental protection must go beyond rhetoric, we need strong legislation and enforcement of the law that would not only protect the environment but also put an end to the unabated plunder of our lands and seas.
6. GENDER EQUALITY – Gender discrimination remains an issue with strong socio-economic implications in the country, especially for the youth sector. Feudal gender roles remain vastly unchanged, in cities and the countryside alike. Meanwhile, discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transsexuals (LGBT) in schools, workplace, and in Philippine society in general still persist, with victims of harassment, bigotry and discrimination having little or no option at all to air their sentiments and grievances. Students with chosen gender roles continue to be persecuted under the largely conservative school system, while LGBT workers are still being harassed or looked down upon by feudal corporate systems and labor policies.
Ending gender discrimination should no longer be an individual struggle, but should be transformed into a collective effort by all. Future leaders and legislators are challenged to pass anti-discrimination legislations that would ensure that the rights and wellbeing of each and every Filipino will be safeguarded, no matter the sexual orientation.
7. GOOD GOVERNANCE – Developments in the country’s economic policies should coincide with reforms in the way the government is administered. Good governance entails not only the fast-tracking of government processes, but should also mean opening greater democratic space for people’s participation in the conduct of the country’s affairs.
All branches of the government should be made transparent and accountable for their acts. Laws should be enacted to empower the common people to serve as vanguards against corruption and ill-doing. Information held by the government should be readily available to every Filipino.
People’s participation should also not end in providing information. Every sector of society – particularly the marginalized and underrepresented – should be given the opportunity to take a direct and active role in every decision-making process of the government.
8. BETTER INTERNET – With the United Nations recognizing access to the Internet as a basic human right, our leaders should also take a clear stand on the development and enactment of laws and guidelines that would ensure that the Internet would not only be seen as the luxury it is now, but rather a social service readily available to the general public.
Efforts should be done to modernize the interconnectivity and telecommunications system in the country, especially in far-flung areas. Policy-makers should also keep in mind that legislation for the Internet should expand – rather than restrict – the relative freedom we enjoy online. Never again should there be an instance wherein a law that endangers our Internet freedom be passed and implemented haphazardly.
9. UPHOLDING NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY – In recent months, the Asia-Pacific has been the center of international dispute wrought by various conflicts involving national territory and international relations. Our sovereignty is being assaulted on all fronts – from disputes in the West Philippine Sea involving sovereign islands encroached by the Chinese, the bloody conflict in Sabah that has led to hundreds of deaths of our Muslim brothers and sisters, up to the US military’s unnecessary and dangerous dragging of Philippine forces to the brewing conflict in the Korean peninsula.
The youth demands from our present and future leaders to fervently fight for our national sovereignty amidst all these brewing conflicts. Let us always be reminded that to be patriotic does not mean surging into a war that we have nothing to do with; patriotism involves serving our own people and not the whims and orders of foreign hegemonic powers.###
Youth Organizations: