ADVOCATES of clean and honest elections have expressed support to the petition filed by a party-list group seeking an investigation on the alleged discrepancies in the results of the May 9 elections, which it said could be an indication of vote manipulation.
Retired Elections Commissioner Gregorio Y. Larrazabal said the poll body should not dismiss outright the request made by Confederation of Non-Stock Savings and Loan Associations Inc. (Consla) party-list group for the sake of transparency and truthful elections.
Consla has petitioned the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to conduct a probe on the discrepancy of the votes it received, noting that, based on the quick count of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), its votes reached 342,513 on May 9, the first day of counting.
The next day, the group noted the PPCRV tally showed its votes went up to 523,753 votes at 11 a.m. and 555,896 at noon, to occupy rank No. 14 in the tally.
However, Consla said, it was shocked when it learned that, based on Comelec’s own canvassing, it only garnered a total of 213,814 votes.
“When you say you’ll have transparent elections, you have to back that up with action. Otherwise, it’s just lip service,” Larrazabal said.
He added that the fact that the alleged inconsistency took place at the server managed by the Comelec and used by the PPCRV, its sole accredited citizens’ arm, makes it all the more imperative for the poll body to act on the matter.
“You need to look at it because the data sent to the transparency server is the same data sent to the various consolidation and canvassing system [CCS],” Larrazabal said.
The Reform Philippines’s Coalition, headed by lawyer Glenn Chong, said Consla’s case “is a strong indication” that the 2016 elections are far from honest.
“They have screenshots of the PPCRV transparency-server update showing they had garnered over 555,000 votes only to be later reduced by over 300,000 votes in the final/official Comelec tally,” Chong said.
He added that he was puzzled by the conflicting results of the tally of the PPCRV and the Comelec with regard to Consla, considering that they used he same transparency server during the last elections.
“The updates of election results are always additions, as there are no negative votes to justify a reduction of their already tallied votes,” Chong said.
“We join Consla in their demands for the Comelec to explain the anomaly cases of this nature cannot be simply ignored or disregarded. They scream for credible answers from the Comelec and Smartmatic,” the lawyer added.
Chong said another party-list group is now also gathering evidence showing the election returns do not match the votes in then certificate of canvass for their group.
He, however, did not identify the group pending the completion of its evidence and the filing of a legal action.
Also supporting Consla’s petition is election watchdog the Legal Network for Truthful Elections (Lente).
Lente Executive Director lawyer Rona Ann Caritos said it is the right of Consla to call for an investigation if it believes it has sufficient evidence to prove vote manipulation in the recently concluded elections.
Carito said an explanation from the PPCRV and the Comelec on the supposed discrepancies would build public confidence not only on the process but also on the Comelec as a constitutional body.
When asked the repercussions of denying Consla’s demand for probe, Caritos said: “It will affect the credibility of the AES [automated election system].”
She noted that in the past, 2010 election issues were brought up in the 2013 elections due to Comelec’s failure to provide answers to various issues, particularly on allegations of fraud and vote manipulation.
Larrazabal has long been pushing for the conduct of an audit of the Comelec’s AES.
In particular, Larrazabal has asked the Comelec to disclose to concerned parties the Internet Protocol (IP) address, the Media Access Control (MAC) address and server logs used in the May 9 polls.