Finally, the Comelec wakes up to reality!

It was a two-day grand affair commemorating the Silver Anniversary of the elevation to the Cardinalate of his Eminence Ricardo J. Cardinal Vidal as the 4th Cardinal of the Church of the Philippines. Call it coincidental that his 25th was also on celebrated on May 25. It was a “star-studded” affair with the most important heads of the Catholic Church, Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) Nerio Ochimar and the Papal Nuncio Joseph Edward Adams and many more clerics in attendance.

While Cardinal Vidal originally came from Marinduque, he became a full-blooded Cebuano when he ventured to learn how to speak fluent Cebuano very early in his career. That he loves to say mass in Cebuano has made us close to him. He is a true shepherd of his flock, opting to learn our language so even the poorest Cebuano who cannot speak other languages can understand his homilies.

We should give thanks to the Lord our God for blessing Cebu with a true shepherd in Cardinal Vidal though he has grown older and weary through all these years. We pray that he’d continue with his commitment to serve us Cebuanos for years to come.

* * *

Finally the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has awakened from their stupor. Chairman Jose Melo has asked the Department of Justice Acting Secretary Alberto Agra to investigate the problems with the PCOS machines. Sec. Agra, in turn, endorsed a letter to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to study the creation of a task force to investigate potential fraud in the last elections.

I fully agree that a special task force is needed to get into the bottom of this problem as the creation of the task force is very vital in order to ensure that there it total objectivity and fairness. Hence, representatives of both political camps must be there in order to ensure that every candidate’s problems are heard and if possible, answers be given. So, can we truly get into the bottom of this massive fraud?

That the PCOS machines in the National Canvass center came up with 153 million voters should be alarming enough for the Comelec. This figure is three times more than the number of total voters in this country and almost double the population of the Philippines. Perhaps this explains the bloated figures that we saw in the Province of Cebu, where there were a total of 1,500,628 voters. If you add all the votes cast for all who ran for President, the figure would be 1,411,850. Subtract this number from the 1,500,628, then you will see a figure of 88,778 voters who did not vote for any President! Now isn’t this strange in Presidential elections? In the Vice-Presidential race, the figure is higher at 151, 954 who did not vote for a VP! Until now the Comelec refuses to answer our queries on this.

I met former Sen. Kit Tatad who ran for the Senate under the Grand Alliance for Democracy and the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP). He gave me a three-page treatise on his proposal to nullify the May 10 elections because there are just too many things wrong with it. He told me that his lawyers will soon file this petition before the Supreme Court.

Sen. Tatad stated, “In 2009 in Germany, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled electronic voting was unconstitutional. The court held that the voting machine does not make it possible for the voter or the voting board to reliably examine, when the vote is cast, whether it has been recorded in an unadulterated manner or whether when transmitted it has been accurately transmitted in its unadulterated form. Democratic elections, the court pointed out, are democratic only when they retain their public character. That is to say, when the public, beginning with the voter, can see and authenticate every essential step of the election without need of special expertise.”

In our May 19 article we said that when I finished filling up my ballot, the BEI’s asked me to insert my ballot and pushed the button, and a paper tape was supposed to appear to record my vote. Unfortunately, the Comelec removed this. All of us got only got a digital greeting congratulating us for voting.

The Comelec apparently took this feature out. But according to R.A. no.9369 amended by R.A.8436 on section 7 states, on (d) “System integrity which ensures physical stability and functioning of the vote recording and counting process and on (E) Provision for voter verified paper audit trail.” Now why was this feature no longer there when it is in fact part of the law for a voter to have a paper audit trail? Someone in the Comelec violated the Election Law and someone ought to answer for removing this feature that is specifically pointed out in the law.