Comelec: Who says there is no source code?

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday brushed aside allegations that the legality and credibility of the May 13 polls would be questioned because of the absence of a source code.

In a press briefing, Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. said claims by the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPeg) that the lack of source code nullifies the results of the elections are not true.

“If there is no source code, yes the election results will be null and void. But we have the source code. Who says there is no source code?” Brillantes said.

He gave assurance that Comelec’s third party reviewer, SLI Global Solutions, had reviewed the source code, although its certification has not been released due to the dispute between Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic International Corp.

“We have a source code reviewed by the third party certifier and counter checked by the Technical Evaluation Committee. We completed it... That is the requirement and the elections will go on,” he said.

Brillantes reiterated that even in the 2010 polls, no one had actually seen the source code but the elections then were valid.

“It is just that without the certification, the source code could not be reviewed by political parties and other interested groups.”

He said the Comelec is not violating Republic Act 9369 or the poll automation law despite the absence of such review.

He maintained the review by political parties and other interested groups “are not mandatory requirements to validate the elections.”

“Otherwise, we give people like CenPeg, political parties the authority to determine whether we should have elections or not,” he said.