Filipino Bishops Hit Vote Buying, Urge Vigilance After 2025 Elections

Filipino bishops hit vote buying, urge vigilance after 2025 elections

MANILA, Philippines – Filipino Catholic bishops criticized vote buying and election-related violence after the 2025 midterm elections, and called for vigilance in building “the dream of a new politics” in the country. “The people have spoken, but it was not a perfect discourse. Money tainted it. Blood stained it. It was blotted by lies. It was colored with vulgarity,” said Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas in a statement after Monday…

EU poll observers report vote buying

(UPDATE) POLL observers of the European Union (EU) witnessed several "credible indications" and received reports of vote buying as well as partisan distribution of welfare payouts. Chief Observer Marta Temido made the remark on Wednesday during a press briefing where she presented the EU Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) preliminary statement. The Philippines, through the Commission on Elections (Comelec), invited the EU to observe the May 1…

EU poll observers flag vote buying but laud voter turnout in Eleksyon 2025

EU poll observers flag vote buying but laud voter turnout in Eleksyon 2025

Vote-buying during PH elections remains ‘endemic,’ EU observers say

“The problem of our political system is the culture of dependency and mendicancy. This is what rich and powerful people primarily do so that they have something to control, because they want their constituents to remain poor.” CAGAYAN DE ORO — Vote Report PH, a monitoring initiative by clean and fair election advocates, only received 2.13 percent of suspected vote-buying and vote-selling incidents from 6,064 suspected campaign and election viola…