Comelec initiates own probe into defective VCMs, SD cards

The Commission on Elections had initiated its own probe into the malfunctioning vote counting machines and SD cards during May 9 elections, even before President Rodrigo Duterte spoke about it.

At a press briefing, Comelec acting spokesperson Rex Laudiangco said the poll body had begun its own investigation even before  President Rodrigo Duterte called for a probe into the allegations of election fraud.

Duterte said then that an investigation will erase the doubts

“Even before the pronouncement of the President we already initiated the investigation of the VCMs [vote counting machines]. In fact, the national tech support center was already reviewing the tickets ... inannounce po ni Comelec Commissioner [Marlon] Casquejo na nag-meeting po ang project management  office together with the DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology ), and the Comelec advisory committee,” Laudiangco said.

"At sinangayunan ng Comelec advisory council ang move ng commission to initiate our own investigation of the VCMs” (and the Comelec advisory council approved of it), he added.

Comelec Commissioner George Garcia reported that at least 1,800 VCMs and SD cards in 1,867 polling precincts were deemed defective .

20K attempted site attacks foiled

Meanwhile, Laudiangco said the DICT was able to block more than 20,000 attempted attacks on the Comelec’s website during the recently concluded elections.

"Mayroon din pong update ang (We also have an update from the) DICT and they are proud to report that they were able to prevent and block more than 20,000 attempted attacks on our website,” said Laudiangco.

“Marami pong sumubok i-attack yung website ng Comelec (There were many attempts to attack the Comelec’s website) on May 8 and 9, including the one on our election results website. But all of these were denied by the DICT,” he added.

But Laudiangco assured the public that the DICT is monitoring the attempted attacks, saying that the ICT department was able to identify some Internet Protocol (IP) addresses doing the attacks.

“Hanggang ngayon patuloy silang nagbabantay sa atin at minomonitor nila lahat ng nagattempt sa atin (Until now they continue monitoring attempts to attack  our website) to a point that they were able to identify certain IPs, they were doing that and they will be pursuing that through the cybercrime investigation division,” he pointed out.

Laudiangco said the Comelec, sitting as National Board of Canvassers (NBOC), is still targeting to proclaim the elected senators early next week.

“Yes, we are on track and we project early next week as our timeline for the proclamation,” he said.

In a chance interview, the Comelec spokesperson said the poll body might also proclaim the initial party-list groups that garnered the 2% votes threshold a day or two after the proclamation of the senators.

“Ang pinag-uusapan natin dito yung top-tier kasi sa bottom po talaga mahihirapan po tayo. Kasi medyo dikit-dikit po yung margins nila doon. Yung projection papasok na siya sa 2% yan po yung maaari nating i-proclaim. At least for the guaranteed seats,” he said.

(The top-tier groups will be proclaimed but  the bottom groups will really have a hard time. Because their margins are small. Those who will get the 2% threshold we will proclaim. At least for the guaranteed seats.)

“The others po kasi magkakaroon kami ng projection sa application ng formula, at titingnan po namin so baka yung maaaring iba pa maibigay. Titingnan pa namin, magsa-sampling pa kami ng formula pero definitely kahit magsampling kami ng formula for the top tier yung bottom po talaga baka hindi namin mai-proclaim ‘yan,” he added.

(The other groups we will have a projection in the application of the formula and we will see if the others can be given seats. We will see how the formula works, but definitely even if we sample the formula for that top tier, we will proclaim them. We may not proclaim the bottom groups.)

The law provides that a party-list group that gets at least 2% of the total number of votes cast in the party-list race will be entitled to at least one seat in the House of Representatives.

Those who exceed the 2% threshold will be entitled to additional seats proportionate to the number of votes cast, but the total number of seats for each winning party-list group cannot exceed three.

At least nine party-list groups have secured seats in the House of Representatives based on the partial and official tally of the Comelec on Thursday.

Random manual audit

Comelec commissioner Aimee Ferolino said that six of the total 406 ballot boxes have been audited for the on going random manual audit (RMA) of votes as of May 13 at 10 p.m.

Ferolino said no variance has been reported, adding that the accuracy rate is at 100% so far.

The poll body, election watchdogs, and partner organizations have started conducting RMA of votes for this year’s elections on Thursday, May 12.

RMA chairperson and Atty. Helen Graido said the RMA is being conducted to check the performance of VCMs and to examine the ballots to validate accuracy.

Votes will be manually counted for the next 45 days to see if the figures are reflected in the election returns.

Task Force (TF) Kontra Bigay

On the other hand, Ferolino, who heads of the inter-agency task force investigating reports of vote-buying, said the TF has received at least 930 messages on their Facebook pages, 164 on emails, while 88 valid reports have been officially recorded and 49 were submitted with supporting evidence.

She reported that 73 vote buying concerns were received since February 9. At least 50 concerns were acted upon and 12 were docketed, while the rest are under evaluation.

Also, the poll commissioner said that many reports received were not vote-buying related, while other complaints were about videos that went viral.

However, she noted that many reported vote-buying incidents but witnesses were afraid to testify, or have not submitted actual evidence.

The Task Force Kontra Bigay is composed of several agencies, including the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Philippine National Police, Armed Forces of the Philippines, and the Philippine Information Agency.

It is expected to act motu proprio, as well as on formal complaints involving vote-buying.

Under the Omnibus Election Code, any person found guilty of election offense shall be punished with imprisonment of not less than one year but not more than six years.

Also, those found guilty will be denied the right to vote and prohibited from holding public office, and any political party found guilty of vote-buying will be fined. —LBG, GMA News