E-wallets—Philippine election vote-buying weapon or key to trace fraud?

GCash and PayMaya have recently been weaponised for a whole new use case—to buy votes in the Philippines’ presidential elections. While the e-wallets and regulators are now trying more security measures, voting is well past over

Weeks after elections have ended, the Philippines’ presumptive president isn’t in the clear yet—vote-buying reports puts Marcos Jr.’s punitive win at risk

Vote-buying has found a new avenue in e-wallets like GCash and PayMaya thanks to Covid and an underbanked population

Regulators and e-wallets are introducing more security measures to prevent the crime, but may already be too late

Security and monitoring won’t be enough to prevent the practice or detect it: another sector has to get involved

From February through April, Rico Lozada was inundated with texts asking him to vote for Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his camp in the Philippines’ presidential elections. Minutes after one of the messages dropped, Lozada’s GCash e-wallet account received 5,000 pesos (US$95.50) from the same number, the Philippine voter told The Ken. He ignored the messages, but they kept coming till election day on 9 May, when he was handed hundreds of pesos wrapped in a Marcos flyer as he entered the voting booth.

“It didn’t change who I wanted to vote for, but I felt sorry for those who would be convinced by that cash.”

Lozada wasn’t the only target.

AUTHOR

Isabel Martinez

Isa is based in Manila. She covers Southeast Asia's and the Philippines' media, employment and work, policy and investments, and other sectors reshaping consumer life.

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