Online petition seeks ‘true’ election transmission logs

MANILA, Philippines — An online petition has been launched to compel the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to release the “true” transmission logs for the 2022 presidential elections, saying the poll body may have committed deception when it presented only reception logs and passed them off as transmission logs.

Former Finance Executives Institute president Franklin Ysaac launched his “People’s Mandamus to Compel Comelec to disclose True Transmission Logs” online petition in the wake of the exposé of The STAR columnist Jarius Bondoc about the revelation of former Information and Communications chief Eliseo Rio Jr. that the Comelec released transmission logs contrary to what was agreed upon.

“This initiative is people’s right to know the whole truth about the May 2022 elections and to erase any doubt about the irregularities in the conduct of the automated election. Only True Authenticated Transmission Logs will prove the May 2022 election was credible, honest and transparent as provided for by the automated election law,” Ysaac’s petition stated.

Ysaac is one of the three in the Truth and Transparency Trio (T3), along with Rio and former poll commissioner Gus Lagman.

Around 9,879 individuals have already signed the petition as of 5 p.m. yesterday, close to its target of 10,000 signatures.

With “10,000 signatures, this petition is more likely to get a reaction from the decision maker,” Ysaac said.

Earlier, Rio alleged that they were deceived by the Comelec when it handed over to them alleged reception logs, instead of transmission logs.

In his Facebook post, Rio said the “Comelec is further deceiving the public by confusing them” as it “publicly announced that Comelec will show the transmission logs to prove that there were actually 20M+ votes transmitted by VCMs in the first hour after voting closed at 7 p.m. on May 9, 2022.”

Retired Col. Leonardo Odoño previously asked the Comelec for copies of the transmission logs, which was granted by the Comelec on March 23 “to erase doubts as to the transmission of the votes in the first hour after the close of polls.” It was not clear how Rio is connected with Odoño.

“On March 23, 2023, Comelec posted on its website the list of the 2022 NLE Raw Transmission Logs. When we pointed out to Comelec that what they posted were NOT Transmission Logs of VCM transmissions but Reception Logs of the Server received data, they have now changed their website to read ‘List of VCM Received Transmission Logs May 9, 2022,’” Rio said iun his Facebook account.

Comelec Chairman George Garcia refused to comment on the issue, but said there was no difference between transmission logs and reception logs when asked to differentiate the two.