Cotabato City and Maluso in Basilan have been placed under the control of the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia announced the Comelec En Banc made the decision on Monday, September 14, to place the two areas under the poll body’s control following incidents of violence in Cotabato City and the discovery of pre-shaded ballots in Maluso.

Despite these, Garcia assured that no failure of elections have been declared in any area in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) which held its parliamentary elections on September 14.

“Siguradong-sigurado naman tayo na walang failure of election,” the chairman declared.

(We are sure there are no failure of elections.)

Garcia explained, “Wala naman loss or destruction of election paraphernalia. Maaaring compromised pero hindi naman ‘yun loss or destruction. ‘Yung violence is not to extent na hindi na makakaboto ang mga kababayan natin.”

(We did not have any loss or destruction of election paraphernalia. There might po those compromised but there were still no loss or destruction. The violence is not to the extent that it prevented voters from casting their ballots.)

The Comelec exercises full command of all law enforcement, the military, and local government officials and employees in areas under the control of the poll body.

Garcia said the Comelec has already appointed administrators in Cotabato City and Maluso but did not relieve the respective chief of police of two areas.

In Cotabato City, the chairman said three persons were shot dead and 15 individuals got hurt during an altercation Sunday night, September 13, at poll precinct.

Apart from this, he said that also on Sunday night a man got hospitalized after getting seriously hurt from an explosion of an improvised explosive device he was carrying and an incident of a firing of a firearm was also reported.

Garcia said the pre-shaded ballots was discovered also Sunday night.

“We determined, as of last night, compromised ‘yung 36 of the 68 precincts na mga balota. Nalaman namin na ito lahat ay napre-shade. As kung sino nagpreshade alam na namin pati ‘yung mga detalye,” he said.

(We determined, as of last night, 36 out of the 68 precincts have compromised ballots. We found that the ballots have been pre-shaded. As to who did the preshading we already know as well as the details.)

To those who were involved in the pre-shading of the ballots, he warned, “HIndi namin kayo patatawarin regardless of your position.”

(We will not forgive you.)

Based on documentation and the chain of custody, the chairman noted that the ballots are kept in the local government’s treasurer’s office before being distributed to the polling precincts.

“‘Yan po ay isang election offense at the same time titingnan natin kung ito ay pwede maclassify as an electoral sabotage also. Non-bailable po ‘yun,” he said about the pre-shading of ballots

(That’s an election offense at the same time we will look into whether we can classify what happened as electoral sabotage which is a non-bailable offense.)

Meanwhile, Garcia said, “Ang pinakaimporte mareprint ang balota at makasigurado makakaboto ‘yung mga botante sa 36 na presinto na ‘yan.”

(What is important are the ballots will get reprinted and the voters will be able to vote in the 36 precincts.)

The COMELEC chief assured that the reprinted ballots will be flown in and distributed within the day of September 14.