Voters Electoral Awareness, Attitude, Practice, and Perception of the Prevalence of Vote Buying in Mauswagon, Laguindingan, Misamis Oriental

Vote buying is an electoral offense; it is prohibited under the Omnibus Election Code of the Philippines, otherwise known as Batas Pambansa 881, series of 1985 that involves any person who distributes or gives or offers money and goods to influence people to vote against any candidate. The purpose of the study is to determine and explain whether voters differ in their level of awareness, attitude, and practice of vote-buying and the perception of the prevalence of vote-buying in Mauswagon, Laguindingan, Misamis Oriental. The study utilized or used the quantitative descriptive analysis design. The data shows that voters are aware of vote-buying, agree to vote-buying, they happy towards vote-buying, moderately practice vote-buying, and observed that vote-buying is prevalent in the municipality. The study revealed no significant difference in the respondents’ level of awareness of vote-buying, attitude toward vote-buying, their practice of vote-buying, and perception of the prevalence of vote-buying when grouped according to their demographic profile. Thus, it recommended that the Philippine Government, through the Commission of Elections (COMELEC) and the Local Government Units (LGU), must strengthen the information dissemination or proper process and education campaign on elections (voting) and vote-buying.

Keywords: Voters, Elections, Vote-buying, Awareness, Attitude, Practice, and Perception