Groups protest polls

MANILA, Philippines - Militant groups yesterday trooped to the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) where the tally for the national elections is being conducted, protesting what they described as “fraudulent” elections.

The Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) questioned the proclamation of six of the 12 winning senatorial candidates even if only 72 out of 304 certificates of canvass had been tallied.

KMU said the Commission on Elections (Comelec) repeatedly refused to be transparent in the conduct of the counting of votes when it prevented the poll watchdogs Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting and the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas from publicizing their unofficial count.

“A non-transparent election is a fraudulent one. We condemn the Comelec for repeatedly refusing to make the conduct of elections transparent to the public,” KMU secretary-general Roger Soluta said.

Soluta said the Comelec refused to subject the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines’ source code to public scrutiny and was now preventing election watchdogs from publicizing their count.

“It is disgusting that the Comelec failed to undertake a speedy count but pushed through with proclaiming the six senators-elect nonetheless. It clearly wants to deceive people into thinking that the election is proceeding apace, contrary to what’s really happening,” he said.

Migrante International, on the other hand, expressed concern over reports that one of the frontrunners in the party-list elections has previous links with Comelec and election paraphernalia provider Smartmatic.

Migrante chair Garry Martinez said OFW Family Club nominee Juan Revilla used to be the project manager of Placewell Manpower, a recruitment agency contracted by Comelec to man the PCOS machines in the 2010 elections,

Martinez said both the Comelec and OFW Family Club have some explaining to do since Revilla’s links to Smartmatic are “clearly a conflict of interest.”