Erap finds ally in NGO on poll fraud claim

MANILA, Philippines - Former President Joseph Estrada, who refuses to concede to presidential race frontrunner Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, has found an ally in a non-government organization that is disputing the credibility of the recently concluded automated national elections.

In a presentation at the University of the Philippines, the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPeg) said several problems in the implementation of the country’s first automated elections have made the exercise vulnerable to fraud.

CenPeg director for policy studies Bobby Tuazon said the elections were flawed from the beginning when the security features of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines were disabled.

CenPeg IT consultant Pablo Manalastas said the Commission on Elections (Comelec) should prove “beyond reasonable doubt” that it only used election returns from consolidated precincts that used the memory cards that passed field testing and sealing. 

There have been allegations that there were pre-programmed memory cards used during the elections.

A week before the May 10 elections, memory cards for the PCOS machines were found defective. Smartmatic-TIM, which was contracted by the Comelec to provide the machines, immediately recalled the cards distributed to polling precincts nationwide and replaced them in a week.

CenPeg said several precincts also failed to transmit the results electronically, forcing the board of election inspectors to bring the memory cards or even the PCOS machines to the municipal canvassing centers. 

The group also said the Comelec failed to fully cleanse the voters’ list. They also pointed out that the UV scanners, which the government spent P30 million for, were not used in many polling precincts.

CenPeg also questioned the announcement of the first transmitted results by Comelec Chairman Jose Melo at 6:30 p.m before the official close of polls at 7 p.m. 

“The election results remain questionable until Comelec answers these questions,” Tuazon said.

The group is pushing for the creation of an independent body to look into the alleged irregularities in the recently conducted elections. 

CenPeg executive director Evita Jimenez said they are prepared to go to court to compel the Comelec and Smartmatic to produce documents that will help in the investigation of poll irregularities.