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| Senator Pangilinan composite photo from Google (ctto) |
Manila, Philippines - Senator
Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan brought up the issue last Tuesday during
a public hearing on the conduct of the recently-concluded midterm election as
he inquired the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on the problem that caused
the transmission delay that resulted a 7-hour results blackout last May 13.
He asked the Comelec if there is an effort to find the root cause of this
glitch?
Senator Koko Pimentel called on a Joint
Congressional Oversight Committee (JCOC) yesterday to discuss the output of the
technical working group (TWG) on the automated election system, as well as the
final report of the local source code reviewers and the conduct of the 2019
elections.
“I asked so many experts on IT and
they have a thousand different interpretations of what could have happened.
Just earlier, they were saying perhaps there was a bug. We don’t know. We don’t
know,” Pangilinan said.
The Liberal Party, headed by Panglinan, submitted motions dated
May 16 and May 21 requesting the Comelec to give an explaination the 7-hour
glitch, defective VCMs (vote-counting machines), and corrupted SD (secured
digital drive) cards, among others.
Pangilinan also served as the campaign manager of
the Otso Diretso senatorial slate, a coalition of LP, Akbayan, Magdalo, Aksyon
Demokratiko, and various civil society organizations.
“We had two manifestations, on May
16 and May 21, as the canvassing was ongoing. We have not received any response
from you. So may we have the courtesy of being responded to?” Pangilinan
added.
“I know you’re busy, and
in fact it’s part of our manifestation, but let’s respond to these
manifestations. We do not want to get this feeling that the opposition is being
ignored,” he said.
Comelec
Spokesperson James Jimenez agreed on the request that the election committee
will prepare a response and a report.
Pangilinan also expressed concerns about the malfunctioning VCMs. “Why was it not tested to the maximum? Up
to what level was it tested, because we don’t want something like this to
happen again. And therefore obviously, the testing was not effectively or
properly undertaken? Because if you tested it properly, then this 7-hour glitch
should not have happened.”
Mr.
Peter Banzon the Technical Evaluation Committee Chairman said there has been logistical
challenges in testing the VCMs.
“We couldn’t find a place where we
could install all the VCMs, basically. The only time all of them would be
online would be on election day,” Banzon said.
Sen. Pangilinan said, “Come
2022, another glitch could happen because you won’t have the opportunity to put
all the 90,000 in place? So what’s the point of testing if we’re not sure the
test will in fact be an assurance that it would work?”
Comelec
revealed on the same meeting that 1,051 voting machines malfunctioned during election day, with
2,246 SD (secure digital) cards that were found defective, particularly in
regions 3 (Central Luzon), 4A (Southern Luzon), 9 (Zamboanga Peninsula),
Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and the National Capital
Region.
However,
the Comelec emphasized that some of the corrupted 2,246 SD cards have been
replaced. The election committee does not have the exact figure at the moment, the
senators computed as much as 2.2 million votes might have been affected.
“When you have to wait five hours
for the replacement, will you still vote? These are the realities on the
ground. So if you are talking 2.2 or 3 million voters who had to wait for five
hours for the SD card, will they still vote? We don’t know. Baka umuwi nalang
at sinabing, ‘Ayaw na naming bumoto,’ Pangilinan said.
“So this has to be avoided. Because
this is a disenfranchisement in that sense of a number of voters and affects
the overall results. And therefore it has to be checked. It has to be looked
into. And how must this be avoided in the future,” he added.
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