Something is very wrong with the Philippines’ Commission on Elections. After failing to submit its comment to a petition by former Senator Richard J. Gordon to compel the Comelec to issue receipts to voters after casting their votes in the May 9 polls, it now blames the tribunal for not giving them a chance to give its side.
Instead of submitting their reply to the petition as ordered by the court, the Comelec lawyers asked for a five-day extension. But the tribunal wouldn’t have any of their delaying tactics. After all, the election is less than two months away. The poll commissioners had ruled unanimously, 7-0, against Gordon’s petition and it shouldn’t be too hard for them to give their side if they indeed discussed the petition lengthily before making that unanimous ruling.
And so the Supreme Court, also unanimously (14-0), reversed the Comelec ruling and ordered the poll body to activate the Voter Verification Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) component of the automated poll counting machine, which gives voting receipts to voters after they had cast their vote.
The Comelec didn’t stop in blaming the Supreme Court for not granting it a five-day extension to air their side. The poll body appealed for reconsideration and now Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista warns everybody that if the May 9 election fails, it is the result of the SC decision’s decision ordering the poll body to issue voter receipts.
And now, he says, the Comelec may have to move the elections to June 9 and also warns that chaos might ensue if it is unable to declare any winners by June 30, when the terms of incumbent officials end. Bautista says the Comelec may also be forced to shift to manual voting if it cannot postpone the polls by one month.
Why Bautista would even suggest a return to manula voting when the law clearly mandades poll automation in elections, including the May 9 polls, is beyond me. Do the election commissioners even understand or respect the law?
The Comelec is basically resorting to blackmail by putting the pressure on the tribunal to reverse its decision.
I don’t think the Supreme Court would reverse its unanimous decision based on these virtual threats from the Comelec. After all, the law is very clear on the need to activate the VVPAT.
Gordon points out that under Section 7 (e) of Republic Act 9369 or the Automated Election Law, the VVPAT is one of the required minimum systems capabilities of the automated election system and a major security feature of the vote counting machine. He should know because he is the principal author of the law.
Twice, the Comelec did not implement this provision, during the first automated election in 2010 and again in the senatorial and local elections in 2013. In the 2010 presidential elections, it used the discredited Precinct Count Optical Scan machines minus the paper audit trail. In 2013, it used the same PCOS machines also without the VVPAT.
And in the coming May elections, Comelec had again decided against using the VVPAT because, Bautista said, it could be used as a tool for vote buying and would also extend the voting period by seven hours. But it has been almost nine years since Automated Election Law was passed in 2007. Surely, the Comelec could have come out by now with a reliable system to implement its provision on the voting receipts.
It would seem that there never was any effort by the Comelec to enforce the VVPAT provision, which, according to Gordon, allows every voter to confirm whether or not the machine cast the vote correctly based on the choice of the voter, thereby ensuring the integrity of the elections.
“Several safeguards were put in place to ensure the sanctity of the ballot. Among these safeguards was the VVPAT. A voter verified paper audit trail consists of physical paper records of voter ballots as voters have cast them on an electronic voting system. The voter-verified part refers to the fact that the voter is given the opportunity to verify that the choices indicated on the paper record correspond to the choices that the voter has made in casting the ballot,” Gordon said in his petition.
Gordon added that the VVPAT serves as a deterrent against election fraud and provides a means to audit stored electronic result. He added that Sections 6(e), (f) and (n) of the said law is clear and unequivocal in mandating the use of the VVPAT and that it is not up to the Comelec whether or not to implement it.
By refusing to give voting receipts, the Comelec has violated the law twice already – in 2010 and in 2013. And now, it wants Supreme Court approval to violate it one more time.
The Comelec must not be allowed to violate the law again. Gordon correctly pointed out that its refusal to activate the VVPAT is one of the reasons why there are those who have questioned the credibility of the automated election system, in addition to the failure of the poll body to implement other safeguards, such as presenting the source code for review and disabling the use of digital signatures.
The Supreme Court must not give in to warnings of election failure scenarios being dangled by the Comelec. The Comelec commissioners should not be allowed to pressure the Supreme Court to allow them to do what it is convenient for them or whatever they choose to do. The law is very clear and it’s about time the Comelec does its duties correctly.
The Comelec commissioners cannot fall back on their excuse that it’s running out of time. Why then did they not activate and test it earlier? What law gave them the authority to decide that the VVPAT should not be implemented because it can be used for vote buying? Are they just too lazy and incompetent to implement that law to the letter, or are they intentionally leaving room for a fraud much bigger than vote buying?
Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Carlos Zarate said the Comelec’s actions are a disgrace and only bolster public distrust in the election process. The issue of voter receipts is not new, in fact, and has been raised since 2010, he added.
“If only Comelec did not choose to be blind, deaf and numb to the demands and proposals for a more transparent process, it could have inspired more confidence in the upcoming elections,” he said.
Instead, the Comelec is now holding the nation hostage with its threats of a failed election.
(valabelgas@aol.com)