PESO bills circulating in Samar province had taken on a slightly different look till the runup to election day itself. On their face appeared new names: those of candidates, both administration and opposition, that dwarfed the names of heroes to whom the bills have been assigned.
In Cabanatuan City, eight Ford XLT 15-seater passengers unloaded about 300 Badjaos at a voting center in a barangay. By the time a barangay official noticed they were not from the area—they live in another barangay 10 kilometers away—and had no business voting there, the “sea gypsies” had finished voting and been quickly herded back to the vehicles.
And be it Bulacan in Luzon or Sultan Kudarat in Mindanao, local politicians shamelessly employed children to distribute campaign materials near polling precincts on election day.
Vote-buying, unorthodox and illegal campaigning, hakot and other poll violations on voting day itself on marred what was erstwhile a generally peaceful and orderly election on Monday.
Candidates deploying agents to directly buy votes for fees ranging from P10 to P5,000 remained the norm, according to reports gathered by VERA Files.
