Rio: 20-M vote barrage shocked, awed us to silence

“Shocked and awed into submission.” That’s how the flood of 20 million-plus votes within the first hour of counting hit Filipinos on May 9, 2022.

“By that first hour the winning candidates for President and VP were already established – tapos na ang boksing,” says former information-communications technology secretary Eliseo Rio.

How did it happen? Rio’s team of computer forensics examiners discovered that:

Bulk of those 20 million-plus votes illegally came from private IP address 192.168.0.2. The rest came from other private Internet Protocol addresses starting with “10”.

They didn’t come from telcos PLDT/Smart, Globe or Dito that were supposed to transmit election results from precincts. Rio says 192.168.0.2 was an unlawful “man-in-the-middle or intervening router/server”. (Watch https://tinyurl.com/Jarius-Bondoc)

Comelec has yet to heed public calls to explain Rio’s exposé. It had contracted Smartmatic for P1.053 billion for “secure” electronic transmission services.

Rio presented his findings Sunday, July 23 to the Global Transparency and Transformation Advocates Network. A number of attendees in the Philippines and abroad were campaigners of defeated presidential and VP candidates Leni Robredo and Francis Pangilinan.

“They too were silenced into conceding defeat early,” Rio recalls. He wants Comelec to disclose transmission logs from vote counting machines via telcos’ public IP addresses.

Comelec belatedly posted on its website the Transparency Servers’ reception logs. Chairman George Garcia, President Bongbong Marcos’ former election lawyer, claims they’re the same as transmission logs.

A Comelec insider uploaded “raw files” that Rio’s team, on crosschecking with reception logs, unearthed the illegal 192.168.0.2.

The raw files and logs are still there for info-technologists to scrutinize, Rio says. Reader Gilbert Buenaventura exhorts IT groups, computer and math colleges to study how Rio found the fraud: “That’s how experts’ new discoveries are tested, published and repeated in a scientific method by other parties. Then the whole IT community will accept his theory as fact.”

Asked to play devil’s advocate, a former telco technology exec says internal data manipulation is always possible: “The manipulator must have wanted the fraud discovered in the end. That’s why s/he trended the ‘winners’ to have 68 percent of the votes from start to finish of counting in all provinces. If s/he wanted to hide it, then those leads should’ve varied widely.”

Also critiquing Rio’s analysis, an ex-hacker says only Comelec can explain the use of private IP addresses: “Very suspicious that 192.168.0.2 transmitted the bulk. More suspicious that remnants used other private IP addresses.”

Rio also questions the Transparency Server’s receipt of election returns ahead of their printing. Upon precincts’ close at 7 p.m., the Boards of Election Inspectors had first to complete nine time-consuming tasks, including printing of eight ER copies, taking about 30 minutes.

But discrepancies were found between Comelec’s uploaded reception logs and ERs obtained from concerned precinct poll watchers:

•  VCM of Precinct 10070015, Brgy. Bambang, Batangas City printed an ER at 21:10:16 of election night. Transparency Server received it at 19:25:01, 1 hour-45 minutes-15 seconds earlier, from 192.168.0.2 instead of a telco.

• VCM of Precinct 75040563, Brgy. Paso de Blas, Valenzuela City printed at 21:34:00. ER received at 20:16:59, 1 hour-17 minutes-10 seconds earlier, from 192.168.0.2, not a telco.

• VCM of Precinct 75010757, Brgy. 73, Caloocan City printed at 20:39:23. ER received at 19:27:28, 1 hour-11 minutes-35 seconds ahead, from 192.168.0.2.

• VCM of Precinct 76030063, Brgy. Putatan, Muntinlupa City printed at 20:27:01. ER received at 19:47:37, 39 minutes-24 seconds ahead, from 192.168.0.2.

• VCM of Precinct 74020046, Brgy. Malanday, Marikina City printed at 20:05:04. ER received at 20:02:47, 2 minutes-17 seconds earlier, IP address yet undetermined.

• VCM of Precinct 29030023, Paing, Bantay, Ilocos Sur printed at 19:18:27. ER received at 19:11:21, 7 minutes-26 seconds ahead, IP address undetermined.

The world is synchronized under “Universal Time Coordinated” by hundreds of ultra-stable atomic clocks and Earth’s rotation. Comelec spent millions to synchronize 107,000 VCMs’ secure-digital and backup cards, Central, Transparency and Backup Servers.

Time discrepancies are proof of fraud, Rio says: “All telcos, our gadgets, social media platforms have exactly the same time. You cannot receive my text message before I transmit it; my message can be delayed in transit but you cannot receive until I send.”

Pending since October 2022 is Rio’s mandamus plea for the Supreme Court to compel Comelec to disclose telco transmission logs. Co-petitioners: ex-commissioner-info-technologist Gus Lagman and former Finance Executives Institute president Franklin Ysaac.

The Constitution and law require secret balloting, but Comelec must be transparent in procedures and counting.

Rio points up other discrepancies: the VP getting more votes than the president, and each exceeding those of the top senatorial winners.

Politicos wheedle Rio to move on. To which, he replies: “For all we know Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte truly won, but that’s not the point. What we want from Comelec is the truth, not impossible results.”

Former Cabinet member Ernesto Ordoñez adds: “If we don’t have credible elections now, we won’t have credible elections ever.”

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