That there’s been so much killing in Metro Cebu in the past six months is something that the Philippine National Police (PNP) should totally investigate. A saving grace for the police is that most of the killings are somewhat drug-related. Perhaps this is why Mayor Tomas Osmeña accused the police of coddling hitmen or killers and blamed the police for the spate of killings in Cebu City, to which Cebu City Police Office Director Senior Supt. Royina Garma reacted by telling the mayor to prove his allegations.
But instead of proving his allegations, Mayor Osmeña cut his funding for the support of the police. Thus, it tends to weaken the efforts of the police to come to the aid of the citizenry when they have security problems. The latest news coming from Mayor Osmeña was disclosed in his Facebook page wherein he revealed getting death threats from unnamed people. This includes threats to Councilor David Tumulak and Tejero Councilman Jessielou Cadungog. I would like to believe that this was no idle threat as proven by that incident involving Cadungog that led to the killing of a policeman.
Again for the sake of our safety and security, Mayor Osmeña should sit down with Cebu City Police Director Garma for a frank dialogue. Osmeña has been the head of Cebu City for many decades and this is the first time that I heard him getting death threats. This should not be happening to our beloved City of Cebu.
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Former Biliran congressman, lawyer Glenn Chong, appeared before a Senate investigation on the automated elections and showed “discrepancies” in the vote count for the 2016 vice-presidential elections, which is being protested by vice-presidential bet Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos Jr. against the sitting Vice-President Leni Robredo. In a media forum in San Juan City, Chong said that both defeated VP candidate Bong Bong Marcos and VP Robredo got lower votes in the machine count versus the manual checking (or revision) of official ballots.
Now this is the talk about the protest votes by Bong Bong Marcos vs Robredo. But until now, three years after the 2016 elections, no one from the Comelec answered my queries on why Sen. Franklin Drilon and Sen. Villanueva had three million more votes than the most popular candidate at that elections, then Davao City Mayor Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte? Chong pointed out that the Marcos’ vote “discrepancy” was bigger than Robredo’s. In 14 out of 40 precincts that showed a discrepancy, the total votes for Marcos in the election returns was 53 votes less than the physical count. In Robredo’s case, the difference was only 13.
This was reflected in a “random statistics report” that Chong got a copy of. The document showed the results for the VP race in 40 selected precincts in Cebu City, where the revision of votes in the election protest of losing mayoral candidate Michael Rama versus incumbent mayor Tomas Osmeña took place. I have said it here before that I strongly believe that if Osmeña won over Rama, the numbers would not be as large as what was reflected in the 2016 elections where Osmeña won by a stunning 35,000 votes over Rama.
In a press report, Atty. Chong pointed out: “For me, there can be no other explanation, that this was a manipulation, whether the machine got it wrong or there was cheating, as the machine count still wasn’t right. Because when you ‘extrapolate’ it, there’s a big difference between the actual vote count and the machine count.”
I’ve been questioning the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) since the 2010 presidential elections, but no one cared to verify my complaints until I presented the case of the Compostela mayoralty elections between incumbent Ritchie Wagas and Joel Quiño. Wagas supposedly lost the 2010 polls, but he protested the results and, just a month before the 2013 mid-term elections, a Mandaue judge ordered the ballot boxes to be opened. This in turn revealed the truth that Wagas had won the mayoralty race. This is why, my friends, I have always believed that Smartmatic has been a terrible disaster for Philippine elections and should be scrapped once and for all before we hold the 2019 mid-term polls next May.
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For email responses to this article, write to vsbobita@gmail.com. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.