Seeking inquiry on 2010 elections

BANTAYGOBYERNO
Ike Seneres

MANILA -- One year after the 2010 elections, the flawed automated system used in the 2010 national and local elections still casts doubt on the legitimacy of the present Government, a coalition of international and local civil society groups claims.

To establish an atmosphere of legitimacy, TanggulangDemokrasya[1] (Tan Dem) said Malacanang should lead the investigation of the country’s first automated elections, together with Congress and the Commission on Elections.

TanDem is a network of civil society groups, people's organizations, information technology experts, overseas Filipino professionals, reform advocates and concerned citizens, calling for the comprehensive review of the May 2010 automated elections.

Until now, Tan Dem pointed out that some sectors still consider the much acclaimed 2010 electoral victory as null and void "ab initio”, or void from the very beginning, because it was the result of an unlawful implementation of the mandated automated election system (AES).

“All electoral victory, starting from President Aquino down to the local councilors, can be considered as fruit of the poisonous tree because it was a result of a process that was illegal and unconstitutional from the very start,” the group said, adding that the gravest electoral cheating in the country’s history happened in the 2010 elections.

Tan Dem said until and unless Malacanang, Congress, and the Comelec conduct a true-blue and in-depth investigation of the 2010 elections, the issue of legitimacy will hang above the heads of all elective officials, including that of President Aquino, like a Sword of Damocles.

“The best thing for them to do is order their allies in Congress, and join with the Commission on Elections, to conduct an investigation on the 2010 elections, just like they are vigorously pursuing for the investigation of the 2004 and 2007 elections,” the group emphasized.

Tan Dem asserts that a thorough investigation of the 2010 elections would yield valuable lessons learnt – which could serve as the basis for ensuring that the 2013 and 2016 elections would truly reflect the will of the people.

Earlier, Tan Dem claimed that safeguards in the automated system used in last year’s election were illegally disregarded, and election returns were deliberately left without legally required "digital signatures", opening the electoral process and results to fraud that undermined the legitimacy of the election results.

Some of these shortcomings were the suspension of the use of "digital signatures " by the Board of Elections Inspectors (BEI) upon direct orders of the Comelec En Banc itself, the suspension of the use of the built-in Ultraviolet Scanners which are designed to authenticate the ballots being fed into PCOS machine, the failure of the PCOS based AES to comply with the minimum accuracy rate of 99.995% as admitted by the TWG-RMA, the suspension of the PCOS function to show on the screen the voter’ ballots instead of merely the word “Congratulations,” the disregard of the law’s provision on “data retention such as when the COMELEC destroyed memory cards and Compact Flash Cards as early as May 15, 2010.

Tan Dem also questioned the uncompleted source code review and pre-testing of the PCOS machines as specified in the law, the grossly defective implementation of the Random Manual Audit in blatant violation of the law to ensure the sanctity of the ballot, and the disenfranchisement of an estimated 2 to 8 million voters of the presidential, vice-presidential and senatorial elections.

Several civil society groups and personalities, led by HombonoAdaza, have questioned the legality of the 2010 polls before the Supreme Court but the latter has to issue an order regarding the matter.

During the 2010 elections, a team of Election Observers, organized by the Global Filipino Nation (GFN), including citizens from different countries, extensively observed the elections from close range in different provinces. In their report, they challenged the legitimacy of the election results.

The group is also batting for a citizen’s recount in the face of serious election law violations by Comelec and other operational glitches that put to serious doubt the credibility of the elections. TanDem members of GFN and We Care have a pending petition with the Supreme Court for the disclosure of ALL photo images of ALL ballots to facilitate a people's recount.