BY BUENA BERNAL AND JONALYN FORTUNO
AMID calls to postpone the May 10 elections following technical glitches in the voting machines, a group expressed fears that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo would prolong her nine-year reign and ‘forever’ remain in power.
The Concerned Citizen Movement (CCM) saw the proposed poll deferment, made by Arroyo’s election lawyer Romulo Macalintal, as a tactic to execute the “Gloria-forever scenario.”
Macalintal made the statement after several Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines gave erroneous results in a test-run last Monday.
Lawyer Harry Roque, CCM’s co-convenor, said should there be a failure of elections, the Senate must fill the vacuum in leadership by electing a Senate President whose term goes beyond June 30. In doing so, Roque said, a military junta would be thwarted.
“That’s why we’re appealing to the Senate to elect a Senate President to prevent the military take-over, or the Gloria-forever scenario,” Roque said in a press conference on Wednesday.
The Constitution states that if no President and Vice President have been chosen, the Senate President shall assume the presidency. But the law isn’t clear on who should be President when there is a failure in elections.
Roque said their group would oppose efforts to have failure of elections that might eventually lead to a military government.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec), meanwhile, maintained that the elections would push through on Monday despite the defective compact flash (CF) cards that caused the PCOS machines to malfunction.
“We have not voted for any postponement,” said Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal in a television interview.
Plunder raps vs. Comelec, Smartmatic
Meanwhile, CCM also lodged on Wednesday plunder and anti-graft raps against the Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM for the “impending failure” of the May 10 elections.
The group said the Comelec failed to meet three of the six requirements under the law, which would certify that the Automated Election System (AES) functions accurately.
According to the CCM, the poll body was not able to complete the audit on the accuracy, functionality and security controls of the AES software; certify that the source code reviewed is one and the same; and develop a continuity plan.
Roque added that the Comelec did not follow Section 6 of Republic Act No. 8436, which mandates Comelec to conduct a nationwide demo of a computerized election system.
Under the said provision, “the AES shall be used first in at least two highly urbanized cities and two provinces each in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao to be chosen by the Commission. Provided further that in succeeding regular national or local elections, the AES shall be implemented nationwide.”
“But the Comelec implemented it (the AES) nationwide, despite the insufficiency of the time table,” said Roque.
The CCM also filed a hold departure order against “all foreign and local officials of Smartmatic and Comelec.”
Why not 100 % manual count?
With the reliability of the PCOS machines in question, Liberal Party (LP) standard-bearer Sen. Benigno Simeon Aquino III reiterated calls for a parallel manual count in all precincts, which the Comelec had already thumbed down.
“If full manual counting is the solution, then let us do it no matter how long,” Aquino said in a separate press conference at his LP headquarters.
But the Comelec, which deemed a parallel manual counting unlawful, is only preparing for a 30 percent manual count.
Aquino clarified that the LP is still for automated elections provided that the necessary solutions for technical glitches be done. This includes the reconfiguration of the CF cards that will be used in the PCOS machines.
According to Smartmatic, the CF cards were the reason why the PCOS machines did not read ballots properly last Monday. The Comelec had already announced that Smartmatic would replace the 76,000 CF cards in all precincts before another test-run on Friday.
Meanwhile, civic group COMPACT for Peaceful and Democratic Elections echoed Aquino’s concerns and said the Comelec’s logistical challenges raised doubts on their preparedness for this month’s polls.
Compact cited the lack of a vote verification mechanism, the deactivation of digital signatures of the board of election inspectors on the electronically transmitted election results, and the non-disclosure of the whereabouts of spare PCOS machines as part of these problems in logistics.