MANILA: Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Sixto Brillantes yesterday allayed fears of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) on wholesale cheating in the May elections with the use of the precinct optical scan (PCOS) machines.
Brillantes said the PCOS machines used in the 2010 elections have been improved and will be reused in the May elections.
“We are using exactly the same machines and we even improved it, so I think it should be a better or enhanced election,” he said.
On Tuesday, the CBCP asked the Comelec to address concerns on automation, saying cheating may happen at the level of the machines.
Brillantes said he still has to read the CBCP statement but assured the bishops that the poll body has been working on the deficiencies of the system.
“We will try to cope with whatever they think are deficiencies,” he said, adding that they respect the opinion of the bishops.
Earlier, Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento assured the public that nine enhancement measures are in place to protect the machines from tampering.
“Although they have been used in 2010, it won’t be easy to hack them,” Sarmiento said.
The Comelec had decided to buy more than 81,000 PCOS machines used in the 2010 elections from Smartmatic International Corp for the May elections for P1.8bn ($44m). Meanwhile, election lawyer Romulo Macalintal and poll reform advocate Ramon Casiple expressed concern that the Comelec may be opening the floodgate for electoral protests if it will not adhere to the requirements of the law on source code certification.
Macalintal said losing candidates might use the lack of certification to question the result of the elections.
“For me, as long as the election results are accurate, as long as it will not affect the election, there is no problem. Having no certification, for me is just a formal defect. But it may also be used in filing electoral protests,” he said.
Casiple, a member of the Comelec Advisory Council in the 2010 elections, said Comelec may be violating the law if the source code would not be certified.
The Philippine Star
