(6 of 7)
She spoke far too soon. As election day dawned in the village of Balutu, not far from Aquino's home, the atmosphere was tense. Difficulties began as soon as balloting commenced at the local elementary school, when an opposition poll watcher discovered that some 20% to 30% of the barangay's voters were not listed on the rolls and were therefore disqualified. Then, some 35 minutes before the 3 p.m. close of the polling station, a red vehicle with MARCOS- TOLENTINO stickers on the bumper pulled up behind the school. Six men armed with M-16 rifles that had MARCOS decals on the barrels jumped out and headed for the school- yard. Their objective: the ballot boxes. Terror-stricken poll watchers huddled around the boxes in a nervous effort to prevent an obvious theft. At the last moment, a carload of opposition poll watchers arrived. One of the newcomers, a former Filipino Minister of Agriculture, somehow arranged to rescue the ballot boxes and have them carried by election officials to the nearby town of Concepcion for tabulation.
Many similar scenes were taking place across the country. In the Manila district of San Andres, a residential suburb, men wearing military uniforms snatched an undetermined number of ballot boxes. In the industrial suburb of Pasig, more than 100 men armed with knives, pistols and high-powered rifles ordered everyone present at one station to lie down on the floor and then walked off with the voting receptacles.
In some parts of the country, cheating hardly seemed necessary. One such place was Danao, a city on the coast of southerly Cebu island, where a road sign proclaims WELCOME TO FERDINAND MARCOS COUNTRY. Danao is the fiefdom of Businessman Ramon Durano, who owns, among other things, almost all the local cement, sugar, mining and banking industries. He may well have control over most of the 59,000 registered local voters, an unusually high proportion of the 80,000 population in the area. Not a single volunteer could be found in & Danao and surrounding suburbs to act as an opposition poll watcher at the 147 local polling precincts. Said Voting Registrar Roque Loro: "New Society Movement, there are plenty. But opposition, there are none."
After the polls closed, the vote counting started slowly across the Philippines and then almost stopped. Nearly 48 hours after balloting ended, only about 28% of the votes had been officially tabulated. The government's COMELEC tally showed Marcos ahead with 3 million votes, compared with Aquino's 2.9 million. The sluggish pace of the count indicated to many opposition leaders that COMELEC was having trouble making its totals come out to the government's satisfaction. Meanwhile, the volunteer group NAMFREL said that in its unofficial tally Aquino had 5.3 million votes, while the President had about 4.5 million after 46% of precincts had reported.