By MARIA FEONA IMPERIAL
ELECTION timelines have been disrupted again as the Supreme Court (SC) ordered the Commission on Elections to issue vote receipts in the May 9 polls, two months before election day.
With overseas voting preparations halfway done, the Comelec has to alter certain configurations of vote-counting machines (VCMs) and make adjustments in logistics.
These adjustments include reconfiguration of nearly 92,000 secure digital (SD) cards, which, at the moment, are programmed not to print receipts. All cards which will be used in the April 9 overseas voting have already been deployed but need to be returned.
In addition, the poll body has to open bidding for the additional thermal paper to be used for the printouts. An estimated 13 paper rolls are needed for each of the nearly 92,000 clustered precincts.
Receipt receptacles, meanwhile, shall also be procured as the old ballot boxes serve as storage for old records.
Teachers, who will serve as members of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) have to be re-trained and scheduled trainings may have to be postponed as well.
“Itong mga practical na bagay na ito ang dapat marinig ng Korte Suprema (These things are what the Supreme Court has to hear),” Comelec Chair Andres Bautista said in a televised news conference.
With these changes, Bautista said the Comelec also has to amend the general instructions (GI) for the upcoming elections, which was released in February.
He said the SC decision “materially impacts” the preparations of the poll body.
Last week, the poll body has resolved to disable the vote-printing receipt feature of vote counting machines (VCMs) due to longer voting hours, additional costs and the proliferation of vote buying. (See On-screen machine feature to be enabled in elections)
But what seemed final was overturned by the high court today, voting 14-0 to grant the petition of senatorial aspirant Dick Gordon, who said the Comelec should provide for a poll safeguard under Republic Act 9369.
Under the law, the Voter Verification Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) is one of the minimum system capabilities of the automated election system and a major security feature of the vote-counting machines.
However, in Roque vs Comelec, the high court ruled that even without having a vote receipt printed, a paper-based technology like the VCM “affords audit since the voter would be able to verify if the machine had scanned, recorded and counted his vote properly.”
Comelec Commissioner Arthur Lim said he did not expect the SC to decide against the 2010 ruling.
“Kung ang dahilan para magkaroon ng receipt ay para malaman ng botante na authentic at accurate ang pag-record ng kanyang boto, merong OSV (If the rationale for issuing a receipt is for a voter to know that his or her votes are recorded authentically and accurately, there’s the OSV), which the Comelec en banc allowed in a very recent resolution,” Lim said.
“This is a day of sadness. Not for the Comelec, not even for the Supreme Court, but for Philippine democracy and the rule of law,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Center for International law welcomed the SC decision, saying it is the true essence of the Roque doctrine.
“The tenor of the two earlier rulings is that the PCOS machines should be able to print paper audits or receipts on demand,” CIL executive director and lawyer Romel Bagares said in a statement.
“The Gordon decision, in my opinion, upholds the Roque doctrine without any equivocation,” he added.
While the Comelec has to obey the rule of law set by the high court, Bautista said they should have been consulted first on the technical, practical and operational aspects of the automated polls.
“I think we would appreciate it if we were given the opportunity to orally argue before the Supreme Court so that they are made aware of the practical and the operational difficulties in managing an election,” he said.
“The Comelec is not an ordinary agency of the government. It is an institutional commission that has the technical expertise on election matters,” Lim said.
Bautista said the Comelec en banc is still looking into filing a motion for reconsideration but only after they have received and carefully read the high court decision.
The Comelec is set to hold an emergency meeting tomorrow at the VCMs warehouse in Sta. Rosa, Laguna. As of the moment, operations in the warehouse pertaining to the pre-election logical accuracy test (Pre-LAT) have been halted.
