Ballot secrecy protects voter’s choices – MILF exec

 From MindaNews (Mar 10, 2022): Ballot secrecy protects voter’s choices – MILF exec (By FACT CHECK)

A senior leader of the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Force (BIAF), the armed wing of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), clarified Thursday that members who will not vote the front’s candidates in the 2022 elections can not be immediately expelled from the organization, in reaction to a misleading post circulated on social media.

A Facebook post claimed that BIAF-MILF members who will not vote all the candidates endorsed or supported by the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP), the MILF’s political party, will automatically be removed from the organization.

Speaking in Filipino, Toks Ebrahim, chief of the BIAF Administrative Department, cited the ballot secrecy law in refuting the claim.

“We have directed our members to vote the candidates fielded by our political party. However, we would not know who will they actually vote because of the secrecy of the ballots come election day,” Ebrahim explained on the phone.

Hence, to say that BIAF-MILF members who will not vote the UBJP candidates can be automatically removed from the roster is misleading because we have no way of determining whom they will have voted, he noted.

Article 5, Section 2 of the 1987 Constitution states that Congress shall provide a system for securing the secrecy and sanctity of the ballot as well as a system for absentee voting by qualified Filipinos abroad. https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/constitutions/the-1987-constitution-of-the-republic-of-the-philippines/the-1987-constitution-of-the-republic-of-the-philippines-article-v/

Ebrahim said that since the MILF has become part of mainstream Filipino society, the organization encourages its members to exercise their democratic rights to vote and expects them to cast their votes on the candidates of UBJP.

According to him, the MILF’s political party is fielding local candidates under the moral governance principle fostered by their leadership headed by Al Haj Murad Ebrahim, who is also the Interim Chief Minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The misleading social media card was posted on Facebook page Bantay BARMM, which counts at least 51,757 members. The post, however, could no longer be accessed as of posting.

As with all our other reports, MindaNews welcomes leads or suggestions from the public to potential fact-check stories. (Bong S. Sarmiento / MindaNews)

(This fact-check piece was produced with the support of Internews’ Philippine Fact-Checker Incubator Project.)

https://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2022/03/ballot-secrecy-protects-voters-choices-milf-exec/