Workers Electoral Watch Launched in Cebu City and Davao City: Workers vow to monitor electoral fraud in 2010 Elections
April 17,2010- With election fever heating up alongside rising summer temperatures, more and more members of the labor sector are expressing concern over the conduct and outcome of the local and national polls. The use of an automated system in casting and counting our votes has not only put labor groups and organizations ill at ease, it has also lead them to unite towards guarding the upcoming elections.
Through the Workers’ Electoral Watch or WE-Watch launched nationally last February 22, workers now have a mechanism for understanding and monitoring the Automated Election System (AES). Aside from chapters already set up in areas of Metro Manila, Iloilo City, Bacolod City, Olongapo City and Baguio City, simultaneous trainings and local chapter launchings are being done today in Metro Cebu and Metro Davao by WE-Watch. Others are slated to be held in the coming days.
WE-Watch is a nationwide project organized by the Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research (EILER) and funded by the European Union (EU) under the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR)with the amount of Euros 60,429 . It educates workers on how to vote and trains them to participate in an SMS-based fraud monitoring system that covers twelve major cities and industrial centers in the country. The reports gathered through this monitoring system are stored and filed to serve as evidence for electoral adjudication, which is done in cooperation with the Legal Network for Truthful Elections or LENTE.
Workers today comprise about 83% of the total number of registered voters, making them a formidable force in overseeing the electoral process and in ensuring post-election accountability. A strong worker-based network such as WE-Watch then complements our national vigilance over having clean, honest, and transparent elections.
In a prepared statement, Joselito Natividad, Lead Convener of WE-Watch said: “Too long has the labor sector been a mute witness to foul machinations that resurrect themselves every election. With some 75% of the current electorate belonging to the laboring strata of Philippine society either as formals or as informals, the labor sector presents a huge potential in the popular advocacy of ensuring the integrity of the upcoming elections.”
He added that with this step, workers will be able to channel their own sectoral stream of fraud monitoring to the mainstream people’s movement for clean elections. “With the formation of this non-partisan network of worker-volunteers, we commit ourselves to promoting good governance, human rights and social justice.” #
