Senate receives COCs

MANILA, Philippines - The Senate yesterday received 170 of 276 certificates of canvass (COCs) which Congress needs as it convenes as the National Board of Canvassers for president and vice president on May 24.

The COCs were placed in a makeshift pen at the Recto room on the Senate building’s second floor, manned by members of the Office of the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms and secured by surveillance cameras 24 hours a day.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile has vowed that the two chambers of Congress will start canvassing as soon as they get a quorum.

Enrile and Speaker Prospero Nograles have agreed to start the counting next Monday.

Under the law, the Senate will act as the caretaker of the COCs. Electronic copies, on the other hand, were sent to the House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said candidates for president and vice president who claim to have been cheated should be prepared to present credible evidence so that Congress can give due course to their complaints.

Pimentel said he will see to it that fraud allegations are properly addressed by the Senate and the House and not summarily disposed of with a plain “noted” as what congressional leaders did during the canvassing of votes in the 2004 elections.

Pimentel made the statement in the wake of allegations by certain candidates, political leaders and groups that rampant irregularities have marred the country’s first automated polls.

The complainants claimed that election results, as reflected in the COCs, did not match the figures in the election returns. There were also allegations of manipulation of election results through the use of tampered and pre-programmed compact flash cards which contain instructions for the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines to read the ballots.

Pimentel also urged election authorities to investigate the reported dumping of l6 sacks filled with election returns and related paraphernalia in a junk shop in Cagayan de Oro. 

He said such election materials should be preserved and kept by the Comelec since they may be used in resolving electoral protests.

He also reiterated that Smartmatic International, the contractor of the P7.2-billion poll automation project, must be held responsible for the scrapping of essential security features and the malfunctioning of the PCOS machines that have led to fraudulent election results, aside from causing disenfranchisement of voters.