TWO days before the May 9 polls, the Commission on Elections seemed to be in disarray with some commissioners questioning what they perceived to be a deliberate delay in the signing of key resolutions, an insider said Friday.
The same source told The Standard that some commissioners questioned Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista’s trip to Legazpi City at a time when crucial decisions had to be made at the poll body.
“Some commissioners got mad at the Comelec secretary because they were holding up some resolutions,” the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.
But he said they were just doing their jobs because Bautista had ordered them to hold the resolutions.
The source added that the commissioners were unhappy with Bautista.
“He’s been hiding resolutions and keeping things from them [and might be] delaying the process,” the source said.
Pending decisions that need to be addressed before Sunday are the leasing of 1,000 broadband global area network (BGAN) or satellite internet devices, the specific rules to deal with precincts that run out of ballots, the manual importation of data from SD cards, and log instructions and hashtags for board of elections inspectors.
On Friday, Commissioner Rowena Guanzon said the Comelec planned to lease 1,000 BGAN devices, but the move has not been covered by any resolution.
“I really don’t know. Because the act of purchasing is an executive function that is properly under the functions of the chair,” she said.
When asked about pending resolutions, Comelec Commissioner Luie Guia said that some rules that need to be enforced for the safety of the BEIs have not been finalized.
But on Wednesday night, just four more days to Election Day, Bautista went to Legazpi, Albay.
The poll insider said, some commissioners felt that they were left hanging.
The Comelec en banc was supposed to meet 10 a.m. Wednesday, but they moved it to 3 p.m.
The commissioners waited for more than three hours only to be told that Bautista had left his office at Palacio del Gobernador in Intramuros, Manila at 5 p.m.
The six commissioners then proceeded with the en banc meeting even without Bautista.
“He was in Legazpi, Albay Wednesday and flew back to Manila Thursday morning,” the source said, adding that he was there for a command conference.
“But the command conference ended during the day and he could have come home the same day but chose to stay overnight,” the source added, noting that coincidentally, administration candidate for president Manuel Roxas II and his running mate Rep. Leni Robredo were in Legazpi for “a unity gathering” that lasted until Wednesday evening.
Bautista did not respond to text questions about the command conference in Legazpi City.
Bautista, however, said Friday the BGAN devices would be in place by May 9.
Earlier, the website Politiko reported talk that Bautista was not feeling well as a result of the heavy pressures of the coming elections, and the lack of support among commissioners for his pet projects, including the plan to move the National Canvassing Center to Manila Hotel and mall voting.
The Comelec en banc ruled against Bautista’s pet project to transfer 352 clustered precinct to 86 malls.
“He’s shutting down. Shutting down is when a person cannot handle the pressure and his system shuts down. He doesn’t know what to do anymore,” the source said.
But Bautista was present Friday morning during a walkthrough at the Philippine International Convention Center.
Last week, some Comelec staff put up a poster that said: “We love and support you Chairman Andy, your Comelec family.”
The friction inside the Comelec was accompanied by more concerns about cheating.
Vice presidential candidate Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the recent publication of surveys showing Robredo catching up to him sought to establish “a fake trend” that would be used to justify her victory by cheating.
“They will force hard to make Robredo win the elections even through cheating, starting with the surveys in the trending. Then they will make Robredo win and impeach [Mayor Rodrigo] Duterte in case he gets elected,” Marcos said.
Marcos said he heard of this plot, even from friends within the ruling Liberal Party.
He reiterated his earlier call for the people to guard their votes and frustrate this kind of maneuvering and other forms of cheating in the polls so that the true will of the people through the ballots will prevail.
Marcos also cited the irregularities that marred overseas absentee voting that robbed him and other opposition candidates of votes.
Presidential candidate Senator Grace Poe and her running mate Senator Francis Escudero, meanwhile, expressed alarm over reports that the Comelec made a last-minute decision to replace hundreds of vote-counting machine technicians just a few days before the May 9 automated polls.
George Garcia, secretary general of the ticket’s legal team, said they have received complaints from a number of VCM technicians whose contracts were suddenly terminated by the poll body for unknown reasons.
“We find it strange that said VCM technicians, who have been extensively trained to operate the machines to be used on Monday’s elections, were hastily terminated and replaced by newbies, reportedly some of whom are minors,” Garcia said.
The dismissed VCM technicians were earlier trained by iPlus Intelligent Network Inc., a Makati-based outsourcing firm contracted by the Comelec.
After undergoing a series of training since March, the technicians were made to sign a contract and their names were posted on the Facebook account designated for volunteers for the May 9 elections.
But on May 5, the technicians were informed about a new list. Upon checking, they discovered that their names were no longer in that list, which now contains a new set of technicians.
According to dismissed technicians, they tried to seek an explanation from iPlus, but were told by the company that the “termination order came from the Comelec” without giving any reason.
Roberto Rafael Lucila, head of the National Campaign for Legal Center, called on the poll body to explain why the VCM technicians were “replaced on the eleventh hour.”
“We urge the Comelec to assure the public that the incident was not a prelude to poll cheating,” Lucila said.
Smartmatic’s Karen Jimeno, however, denied reports that they fired technicians, noting that Iplus merely did not hire those who did not pass all the required tests.
Jimeno also said that the VCMs have been turned over to the Comelec for deployment to all clustered precincts nationwide.
“On Election Day, the VCMs will be operated only by Comelec’s BEI (Board of Election Inspectors) and clection officers,” Jimeno noted.
Guanzon said despite pending resolutions, all systems are go for May 9.
Guia, on the other hand, said it was normal to have pending rules because the poll body was tweaking them to assure credible elections.
During the walkthrough of the National Canvassing Center at the PICC, Bautista said there were only minor glitches in the week-long final testing and sealing stage for more than 90,000 VCMs.
“We are doing okay. It is definitely way better than the FTS during the 2010 and 2013 elections,” he said.
He said that the minor glitches only involve the delayed initialization of the VCMs and the malfunctioning of some scanners.
Since Monday, the Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) manning clustered precincts have been conducting FTS and will continue until Saturday.
After undergoing FTS, the VCMs will already be locked and sealed and will not be opened again until 5 a.m. on Election Day.
In 2010, it was during the FTS that the compact flash cards of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines were found to have been misconfigured.
This prompted the Comelec and its service provider, Smartmatic – Total Information Management (TIM) Corporation, to replace all the estimated 76,000 CF cards nationwide with just a week left before Election Day.
In the 2013 elections, the Comelec said there were less than 100 glitches reported among the 77,829 PCOS machines during the FTS, including manual counts not matching with the machine-generated results while some machines did not function.
Amid concerns about cheating, an international observer team from the United States, Germany, Sweden and Japan will go to select areas in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Bohol, Dinagat Islands and Santiago, Isabela to help ensure free, peaceful and fair elections on May 9.
At a news conference in Quezon City, Arnold Tarrobago, Compact national coordinator, said the Commission on Elections has allowed foreign observers, members of Compact for Peaceful and Democratic Elections International Observers Mission, to enter the polling precincts, take photographs or video footages, observe and document Monday’s electoral process.
In addition, Compact will come up with a report and recommendation to be submitted to Comelec after the election.
He said, however, the foreign observers will not be allowed to interfere or influence the voter’s decision.
“They will not be allowed to talk to the voters inside the precincts,” he told The Standard.
This year’s mission is made up of parliamentarians, academics, youth and student leaders, and respected leaders from foreign political parties as well as non-government organizations, he said.
Also on Friday, presidential candidate Miriam Defensor Santiago warned that the Filipino youth who have rallied behind her are likely to protest the results of the May 9 polls if the numbers do not reflect the youth choice.
She said 40 percent of the total 54.4 million registered voters are aged 18 to 35.
She said this means that the candidate who can secure at least 75 percent of the youth vote would have numbers comparable to what made Benigno Aquino III president in 2010.
Santiago, who has been topping campus mock polls since the filing of certificates of candidacy, said youth engagement in the elections seem to be at a peak again, similar to the 1992 campaign which almost won her the presidency.
“When I was not declared winner of the 1992 elections, many of my volunteers threatened to take to the streets to protest the election results. Back then, the choice was clear to me: I cannot allow violence,” she said.
But Santiago said she might not be able to stop any youth action against perceived electoral fraud this time around, especially amid mounting youth clamor for moral leadership fueled by allegations of plunder against other candidates. With Rio N. Araja