SENATORIAL bet and former Metropolitan Manila Development Authority chairman Francis Tolentino on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to stop the Commission on Elections from proclaiming some of the winners in the senatorial race, where he is expected to land in 13th place.
Through his lawyer Jose Ventura Aspiras, Tolentino asked the high court to stop the Comelec from proclaiming the senators landing in the 10th to 12th places because of what he called “unauthorized manipulation” by Smartmatic, the company that provided the vote counting machines.
He asked the Court to order the Comelec to open the automated election system to forensic audit and investigation because the canvassing of the votes had been questionable.
He also asked the Court to compel the Comelec to “institute adequate measures to correct the unauthorized access to and interference with the AES.”
“The mirror server and the transparency server of the Comelec have been manipulated,” Tolentino said.
“Among these are the observed ‘abnormalities’ in the results of the senatorial elections.”
Tolentino said the manipulation of the AES had “compromised the results of the senatorial elections, in particular the rankings of the 10th to 12th winning candidates for senator.
“The proclamation of winners for the 10th to 12th positions for senator should be held in abeyance pending full, independent and credible determination of the effects and consequences of such manipulation.”
Tolentino named Valenzuela Mayor Sherwin Gatchalian, reelectionist Senator Ralph Recto and former Justice secretary Leila de Lima, who are in the 10th to 12th places, respectively, as respondents in his petition.
As of 5 p.m. on Wednesday, the Comelec had tallied 96.14 percent of the votes with De Lima leading Tolentino with a margin of over 1.4 million votes.