Fraud Widespread in Philippine Vote : Victor in Doubt; Regime Accused of Stalling Tally

Despite an unprecedented, grass-roots effort by Filipino voters to protect the polls, Friday’s crucial presidential election was marred by widespread vote fraud, election-law violations and sporadic violence that left the outcome of the contest in doubt today.

Volunteer poll watchers trying to guard ballot boxes were beaten, stabbed and shot to death throughout the day. More than 30 election-related deaths were reported from around the nation.

In many polling places, volunteers linked arms to form human chains providing an escort for official returns on their way to counting centers. Tens of thousands of would-be voters maintained all-night vigils outside regional canvassing centers.

No Conclusive Returns

As late as noon today--21 hours after the polls had closed--there were still no conclusive returns to show who had won the most important presidential election in Philippine history. Separate operations set up by the government election commission and an independent citizens’ poll-watching group to do a quick, unofficial count of the vote were severely hampered in the task because their access to numbers and information from outside Manila was being sharply curtailed.

With votes from 18% of the 86,000 precincts counted, the citizens’ group, the National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), had opposition candidate Corazon Aquino leading President Ferdinand E. Marcos by roughly 58% to 41%. The group’s tally showed 2.28 million votes for Aquino and 1.64 million for Marcos.

The official Commission on Elections’ quick count, even more firmly bogged down, had Aquino ahead by 1%, although it had counted returns from only 10% of the precints.

Marcos Reported Ahead

The government-run television network reported Marcos ahead by 300,000 votes, with nearly 3 million votes counted.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), the leader of the 20-member official observer delegation sent here by President Reagan, suggested this morning that Marcos’ forces had held down the turnout by what he called “systematic harassment” and were deliberately trying to delay an independent tally of the more than 24 million votes cast Friday.

Nonetheless, both Marcos and Aquino claimed victory.

Three hours after the polls closed, Marcos, who is trying to extend his two decades in power for six more years, declared on American television, “I probably have won.”

Seven hours later, Aquino announced in a written statement here, “The people and I have won and we know it,” a proclamation condemned in an early morning press conference by Renaldo Puno, deputy information minister, as “designed to create instability and lead to violence” in the country.

Puno also denied that Marcos had actually declared victory, adding, however, “the president, of course has his own sources of advance information.”

Among them, apparently, was a government-controlled television station.

The most extensive results today came not from the official national election commission, which had set up a costly, computerized quick-count center in Manila, nor from NAMFREL, the government-accredited citizens’ poll-watcher group endorsed by the Reagan Administration and other international observers. Instead it was Marcos’ government-run television station, which based its results on telephone reports from around the nation--most of them from powerful local politicians loyal to Marcos.

TV Projects Winner

On the basis of that station’s tally, labeled the Media Poll Watch, Marcos aide J.V. Cruz announced Friday evening that the president had projected that he would win 55% of the popular vote.

But neither of the sanctioned vote counters had announced any definitive results.

At the independent quick-count center set up in a Manila suburb by the citizens’ poll-watching group, which deployed a half million volunteers and a sophisticated communications network nationwide, volunteers had tallied just 15% of the vote.

Organizers of the citizens’ operation, officially sanctioned earlier this week by the Marcos-appointed election commission, said they have been hampered by a lagging communication system, which they blamed on an 11-hour ruling by the government banning the group’s use of telex, telephone or wireless lines for transmitting their results.

Lugar explained in an interview today that he thought the difficulties were being created because “ . . . the government is trying to determine in what is a fairly close election what is going to be required (to win).”

During a visit to the NAMFREL center late Friday night, the senator noted that the citizens’ group had been unable to tally even the votes of metropolitan Manila, the nation’s largest block of votes and a traditional stronghold of opposition support. He added that delays fit “a serious pattern--a very distinct pattern of influence.”

Lugar Sees ‘Violations’

On Friday’s voting in general, Lugar added, “There is a very long list of violations.”

He said the vote in Manila “has been held down by systematic harassment. It was simply much lower than what we had expected.”

In some areas of the capital, he said, the turnout had been only 53%, while he had expected 80%.

“My own political judgment is that the government concluded that the results from Manila would not be good,” Lugar said.

Asked if there had been vote fraud, he replied, “Yes, it’s obvious that there have been irregularities throughout the Manila area, and that’s surprising because it is most easily observable here. The irregularities outside Manila could have been expected, but I was surprised by the extent of the problems even in Manila.”

Based on accounts from eyewitnesses, independent poll watchers, journalists, opposition leaders and even local government officials, fraud, election code violations and intimidation were widespread--and apparently designed to delay polling in areas where Aquino was expected to be strong and to frighten the opposition where it was weak.

Volunteers Harassed

The citizens’ group volunteers, who were accredited to watch the polls for such violations, were beaten up, harassed and, in some regions, thrown out of voting centers. One volunteer, Rodrigo Ponce Jr., was shot to death by unidentified armed men while guarding ballot boxes on the central Philippine island of Panay. Another volunteer suffered stab wounds during a similar encounter in Manila. And in many areas, local ruling party officials simply barred the observers from entering the polling places.

Tens of thousands of voters throughout the nation were dis-franchised when their names did not appear on registration lists in precincts where they had voted in every election for decades. A woman who has lived in the same house for 30 years in Manila’s financial district of Makati found that her name did not appear on the list, but the names of three strangers were listed at that same address.

Even Jaime Ongpin, the only top Aquino adviser whom Aquino had publicly named, could not vote in Makati because his name had been arbitrarily removed from the registration list.

Opposition leaders and citizens’ movement workers estimated that as many as 30% of those entitled to cast ballots in Manila, and 10% in most rural regions, were unable to do so because of the lists. There were such long delays at some precincts that voters were still waiting in line when the polls closed.

Ballot Boxes Smashed

Armed groups described by many poll watchers as “goons” smashed and snatched ballot boxes, threatened voters in opposition areas and, in one small village 80 miles north of Manila, forced all residents to affix thumbprints to ballots the night before the election, adding as they left, “Don’t vote tomorrow. You just have.”

In another precinct in Manila, armed men stole an official ballot box and dumped it down a sewer. Poll watchers later recovered 84 ballots, all marked for Aquino.

Armed men also killed more than 30 campaign workers, poll watchers and local leaders in attacks variously blamed on Communist rebels and internecine political rivalries. But the death toll is expected to climb still higher as reports from remote provinces trickle into provincial capitals in the coming days.

In Manila, Jose Concepcion Jr., chairman of the citizens poll-watching group, urged citizens to help safeguard the ballot boxes at some of the capital’s district townhalls, explaining: “If a truck shows up with a lot of new ballots in it, we want to stop them from getting in.” Thousands of citizens responded.

When asked about the election violations this morning, deputy information minister Puna declined to comment, adding that it will be up to the election commission and the police to investigate the widely reported incidents.

Marcos Calls Vote Clean

The government television channel repeated dozens of times this morning that the election had been free, fair, honest and peaceful. Marcos himself declared in his interview Friday with NBC-TV’s “Today” show, that the election had been “in general, free and clean and honest.”

During the interview, excerpts of which were broadcast on government television Friday night, the president also threatened to use “the full force of the law” in the event of demonstrations and riots that Aquino has hinted could occur if Marcos is declared the winner of an election fraught with fraud.

“I will hit back. We will have to arrest some people,” Marcos said.

Aquino, however, made no mention of the violence in her victory statement early this morning, which was released at a time when just 1.4 million of an expected 24 million votes had been tallied.

Her campaign had quickly projected a 54.58% victory in spite of “close to 20%” of the voters being unable to vote, according to her spokesman Rene Saguisag.

Saguisag said Aquino was planning to call on Marcos in the next day or so “to arrange an orderly transfer of power.”

The widow of opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., whose assassination in August, 1983, triggered the political instability that led Marcos to call Friday’s special election, did mention the fraud and violence of election day.

‘People Have Prevailed’

“The Marcos spell is broken,” Aquino’s statement began. “Against his guns, against his goons, and against his gold, the Filipino people have prevailed.

“A painful price has been paid. Many have been hurt, I am sad to report, and some have died. Let us hope and pray that the tragic reports we have heard are the final price our people must pay for freedom.”

Whether that victory statement will prove valid remained deeply shrouded in doubt today.

Officials at the two sanctioned counting centers said their technical delays may put off definitive, although still unofficial, results until perhaps late tonight. The official returns, which are being canvassed manually at 73 provincial capitals scattered across the archipelago, will not be complete until early next week.

Meanwhile, the president’s spokesmen continued to rely on the unofficial, unscientific and unsanctioned TV tally by a station owned and staffed by the Marcos government.

Times Staff Writer Doyle McManus contributed to this story.