The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Wednesday began returning
more than 1,000 vote-counting machines (VCM) to its supplier despite
opposition from former Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. whose poll
protest was based partly on allegations that the election results had
been manipulated with the use of VCMs.
In an urgent manifestation and motion on Oct. 21, Marcos asked the
Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) to “prohibit the poll body from
releasing the subject VCMs” after the Comelec informed Supreme Court
Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno it plans to return the machines to
Smartmatic-TIM.
The Marcos camp also asked the PET to determine whether these VCMs
were used in the vice presidential race, which the former senator lost
by about 260,000 votes to Leni Robredo, the Liberal Party candidate.
Fraudulent votes
On June 29, Marcos filed his electoral protest and asked the PET to
stop Robredo’s inauguration. He said votes that were counted for Robredo
were fraudulent, contesting the results in 39,221 clustered precincts
in 25 provinces and five cities.
He alleged that Smartmatic introduced a new hash code (or a new
script/program) into the transparency server, which he said had
triggered unauthorized changes in the vote count.
In August, the PET issued a precautionary protective order (PPO)
directing the Comelec to preserve all election materials and
paraphernalia pending the resolution of the proceedings.
Comelec Commissioner Christian Robert Lim had informed Sereno, who
heads the PET, that the machines they planned to return “were not
actually deployed and/or used during said elections [and therefore were]
not within the scope of the [PPO].”
He said these machines had been put on standby as replacement VCMs for those that break down on election day.
Inspection and hand over
By Wednesday noon, the poll body had finished inspecting at the
Comelec warehouse in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, about 500 of 1,356 VCMs it was
to return to Smartmatic, according to Robredo’s lawyer, Bernadette
Sardillo. She said the inspection and hand over will continue on
Thursday if the process isn’t finished on Wednesday.
The Marcos camp said in a statement it is “standing its ground”
against the release of the VCMs without approval of the Supreme Court
sitting as the PET. It did not send an observer to the Comelec
warehouse.
Marcos’ lawyer, Jose Amor Amorado, in a text message to the Inquirer,
said the PET has scheduled a deliberation on their motion on Nov. 8.
“By that alone, Comelec should stay the release of the machines,” he
said.
Sardillo said about 40 SD (secure digital) cards retrieved from the
machines held either intact or corrupted data. She said the memory cards
had been set aside and she had asked the Comelec to decrypt them to
determine what they contained.
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