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Senate, House urged to probe 2016 polls ‘anomaly’

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The Senate and the House of Representatives have been urged to conduct separate legislative inquiries into the allegation of election irregularities in the 2016 elections, particularly the illegal transmission of votes before the actual conduct of elections on May 10 that they claimed subverted the sovereign will of the people to elect their leaders.

The Philippine Constitution Association and Tangulang Demokrasya Inc. and other civic organizations also called on the Philippine National Police and National Bureau of Investigation to probe the alleged illegal transmission of votes and recommend the prosecution of the perpetrators behind the fraudulent scheme to sabotage the results of the May 10, 2016 polls.

Lawyer Manuel Lazaro, chairman of the Philconsa, underscored the need for both Houses of Congress to conduct separate legislative investigations into the privilege speech of Senate President Vicente Sotto III on the alleged illegal transmission of votes and other election irregularities as early as May 8, 2016 or before the May 10, 2016 elections because it raises serious doubts on the mandate of the proclaimed elected officials.

“We are urging the Senate and House of Representatives to conduct separate inquiry into the illegal transmission of votes and electoral activities before the May 10, 2016 elections and open and audit the Automated Election Process of 2016 elections that subverted, plundered and altered the results of the elections. This ejaculated the lingering doubts whether the proclaimed elected officials are de jure or de facto officers,” Lazaro said, in a statement.

“Philconsa is dumbfounded of the horrifying expose of the Senate President Vicente Sotto III on his patriotic speeches on March 6, 2018 and March 14, 2018 unmasking the documented illegal transmissions of votes and other election activities as early as May 8, 2016 before the election on May 10, 2016 were not adequately noticed and publicized,” Lazaro said.

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Lazaro said that the transmission of votes before the election were cleverly concealed to prevent notice and publication of sabotage and treachery to undermine clean and honest election.

“The deadly impact of the lethal disclosures of SP Sotto of the transmissions of votes before the election prostituted and undermined the 2016 elections and caused serious doubts whether the proclaimed elected officials are de jure or de facto officers,” he said. “The nagging question is how many senators, congressmen, governors and other local officials are the beneficiaries of the fraudulent and spurious electoral adventurisms.”

“The brave exposures of Philconsa to SP Sotto raised red flags to act to rectify the past and guard the future electoral elections if democracy must remain in the country,” the Philconsa official said, referring to the alleged transmission of votes before the elections and convening of the board of canvassers is evidence by the consolidated canvassing system in the Municipality of Libon, Albay and Angono Rizal and other municipalities and board of canvassers all over Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao littered with the illegal transmission activities before the elections.

To protect the clean and honest elections, the Philconsa official said the PNP and NBI should investigate the matter with rigor as “it would be useless to hold another election next year without first addressing how to avert what transpired in the May 10, 2016 elections to insure the 2019 elections shall be clean and honest elections if we want democracy in government.”

In his privilege speech, Sotto exposed the alleged irregularities during the 2016 elections that could be considered as a “case of electoral sabotage.”

Sotto said an “impeccably reliable source” handed to him confidential information as to the irregularities constituting electoral sabotage that have allegedly “altered” the results of the last elections.

“If we don’t do anything to clear the doubts as to the legitimacy of the previous election, then we put at risk the accuracy of the 2019 elections,” the Senate President said in his speech in March this year.

On the alleged early transmission of votes, the Board of Canvassers should have convened starting at 3 p.m. of May 9, 2016 but as early as May 8, 2016, there was already a “transmission activity,” he said.

“The transmission is being done by IP Address 10.11.5.5 to 0507.ccs.pili2016pinas.net as seen in logs of SRVCNTADNS01 server,” he said, adding that the IP address, 10.11.55, was the one that transmitted the data while 0507.ccs.pili2016pinas.net was supposedly the receiving end.

Sotto had said that the transmission code pointed to the Consolidated Canvassing System (CCS) of the Municipality of Libon, Albay.

The early transmission continued until the morning of May 9, which was still prior to the official conduct of the election, Sotto said.

“In summary, there has been an alleged early transmission of votes by certain VCMs (voting counting machines) to the Municipal Board of Canvassers. These are only examples of the numerous early transmissions to different Municipal and Provincial Board of Canvassers in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao,” he said.

“The standard answer of Smartmatic would be that these transmissions are only ‘testing transmissions.’ These transmissions cannot be in any way be claimed as ‘testing transmissions’ because as far as I can remember, the last official testing was made on April, 23, 2016,” Sotto said.

Sotto also expressed alarm on the alleged “foreign access” in the election servers during and after the election where a username “e360sync” allegedly made a “malicious activity” which was a “critical intrusion to a computer system.”

“To conclude the second issue, our election servers were allegedly accessed remotely and information gathered were copied and submitted to a server in the amazon cloud services in the United States,” said Sotto who urged the Senate to conduct an investigation on the matter and asked that election and Smartmatic officials should be subpoenaed to the investigation.

 “It is high time that the proper Senate committee investigates the Automated Election System and subpoena Comelec and Smartmatic to provide the relevant data as regards these allegations,” he said.

“These issues cannot be ignored as it weakens the propriety of our automated election system. We must ascertain the accuracy of these allegations as to either make the responsible officials accountable or finally put to rest the questions clouding the results of the 2016 election,” Sotto said.

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