Comelec Rappler Partnership for 2022 Elections Beneficial to VP Leni Robredo – Columnist

Columnist shared that this will happen after the Comelec Rappler Partnership

Vice President Leni Robredo will benefit the result of the Comelec Rappler Partnership, Manila Times columnist Rigoberto Tiglao said.

In his column published on February 28, Tiglao explained what he believes to be the “hidden” agenda of the social media news site, headed by Maria Ressa, for forging a partnership with the Commission on Elections for the 2022 elections.

comelec rappler partnership
📷: Rappler

Tiglao said that last February 24, the Comelec has allowed Rappler to do “monitoring and rectification efforts on critical efforts on the ground” during elections. With this, the social media news site will be able to access the “sensitive data during and after elections such as candidates’ expenses and untransmitted votes,” the columnist said.

Both Comelec and Rappler did not make the memorandum public but Maria Ressa “boasted” about this on her own website. Tiglao pointed out that it is obvious that Comelec is giving Rappler the “confidential data and authority to intervene on the ground, and a means of portraying the elections — if it wishes to — as a failure.”

For the columnist, the Comelec Rappler Partnership has two “scandalous” things. Tiglao said that as the social media news site is known to be pro-Robredo, anti-Duterte, and anti-Marcos, a partisan organization should not be allowed to get involved in the mechanisms of the elections.

With this agreement, Rappler’s website staff are not just the ones who will get involved but also the “MovePH” which is the civic engagement arm of the social media news site. Tiglao explained that MovePH will work with “Voter Care Center to assist in the response to common complaints, like missing precincts, improper campaigning by candidates, long queues outside precincts, incidents of vote-buying, voter intimidation, cheating attempts, election-related violence, among others.”

leni robredo maria ressa
📷: The Manila Times

However, the columnist stressed that in the memorandum, it was not defined or specified who will be the people included in MovePH.

Rappler may well staff “MovePH” with all Robredo campaigners, and they will be on the ground on election day. If Bongbong Marcos and Sara Duterte-Carpio appear to be winning, they could fabricate allegations of failure of elections. Or they could undertake other subtle ways of getting voters to vote for Robredo,” Tiglao said.

He added that both Comelec’s press release and Rappler’s reports regarding this stated anything about the role of MovePH. Tiglao also debunked the claim of Comelec that this is the second time that it partnered with Rappler and the first one was in 2013.

However, in those elections, Rappler merely helped in the information needs of the Comelec and had no involvement at all on election day, nor was it given confidential information,” Tiglao said. He also said that this is the last resort of the Yellow or the Pink to prevent Bongbong Marcos to assume the presidency. He also mentioned the relationship that Maria Ressa has with the US State Department.

For Tiglao, the second scandalous thing about this partnership is that Comelec “appears to have not investigated Rappler’s background, especially the fact that it has been financed mainly by US funds.” With this,  the columnist said that the Comelec Rappler Partnership will just allow the “foreign intervention in our elections.”

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