Tiñga calls on Comelec to conduct manual votes count

MANILA, Philippines - Taguig Mayor Sigfrido Tiñga yesterday called on the Commission on Elections to conduct a manual count of votes to ensure the sanctity of ballots on election day.

Tiñga made the appeal as uncertainty hounds the implementation of automated elections.

Tiñga, outgoing mayor and running for a congressional seat in Taguig’s second district, said manual count is the only option left for the Comelec, given the widespread technical glitches of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines that the Comelec procured from Smartmatic.

“Postponement of the elections is out of the question, given the efforts that everyone has put for the campaign. There is really no other way this to push through, but to do a manual count. The Comelec should concentrate now on providing contingencies for manual count,” Tiñga said.

On Monday, the PCOS machines arrived in various precincts all over the country. Field testing were conducted upon the arrival of the counting machines, but resulted in the widespread misreading of ballots and “inaccurate” counting of votes.

“Given the results of the field testing, we cannot rely on the integrity of the PCOS count any-more, particularly in the local level. The field test showed that majority of the glitches were in the local positions,” he said.

Tiñga warned that failure of the PCOS machines, and the automated elections as a whole, could be a start of massive chaos leading to civil unrest.

In Taguig alone, results of the machine tests resulted to the miscount of votes for the local post, particularly the councilors. At the Diosdado Macapagal High School in Barangay Katuparan, six out of the eight counting machines were defective.