In relatively free elections, opponents make unexpected gains
On the morning of the nationwide elections, Benedictine sisters from the Eucharistic King convent awoke before dawn, attended Mass, then braced themselves for violence. Small wonder: the nuns had signed up to serve as poll watchers in the northern town of Vigan, where for decades local thugs have rigged elections with intimidating tactics that would make a Mafioso blush. But throughout the day, the women stood firm. When the mayor swept up to a polling center with three Jeepfuls of cronies armed with fraudulent ballots, Sister Teresita Felicitas blocked their way. Elsewhere, when a young tough ordered Sister Proxedor to leave her poll-watching center, she stood her ground and prayed. And as soon as the polls closed, a platoon of nuns escorted the ballot boxes to the safety of the provincial treasurer's office. Said Antonio Lahoz, a lay colleague: "The sisters' presence probably gave voters the moral strength to resist any pressure against voting their consciences."
Thanks to such brave efforts around the nation, millions of Filipinos were encouraged last week to speak their minds and vote their consciences for the first time in 15 years. Protected by 150,000 volunteer poll watchers belonging to the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) and prompted by long-pent-up frustration with the autocratic government of President Ferdinand Marcos, voters delivered a stunning message: they were ready for change and prepared to fight for it. Before the election, the President had publicly prophesied a routine landslide victory for his Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (K.B.L.), or New Society Movement. Even the opposition umbrella group known as UNIDO (United Nationalist Democratic Organization) had prudently set its sights no higher than raising the number of opposition seats in the 200-member Batasang Pambansa (National Assembly) from 14 to 30. Final results will not be in until this week, but according to NAMFREL's estimate last Saturday, opposition parties had won 30 seats and were leading in 34 others.
The opposition knew that it would need every ounce of persistence to maintain that gain as the count dragged on. On the day after the election, NAMFREL estimated that the government was losing in 97 constituencies. As the days passed, that figure steadily dwindled. Though the decline was explained in part by late-arriving returns from rural areas where the K.B.L. is strongest, it inevitably aroused suspicions that the government was rectifying its losses by shamelessly altering the returns. Whatever the final tally, Filipinos may now at last have some kind of check on Marcos' one-man, one-party rule. "Despite determined attempts to thwart the popular will," declared NAMFREL Chairman Jose Concepcion, "the Filipino people have proved that democracy is still alive in this country."