The fact that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) disastrously failed to explain why the automated counting machines (ACMs) have been reporting questionable results, with voters questioning why their choices were not reflected in the transmission to the Comelec, only shows that the largely untested Miru Systems equipment could be manipulated to favor certain parties.
Dubious reports prompted the Makabayan Coalition to call for the manual counting of ballots before the transmission of precinct results to ensure that votes are counted properly. Aside from the suspicious replacement of the 3.4 software by the “updated” 3.5 software, the Comelec has not allowed the “updated” software to be audited by parties participating in the election. Why the rush to impose the unvetted 3.5 version of the software? Comelec is not being transparent about this very crucial change and suspicions are rife that this software might have been changed to delete for the Makabayan Coalition aspirants in the senatorial race and Bayan Muna and other partylists.
Barely two days before May 12, 2025, the usual suspects funded by the national government unleashed its worst black propaganda declaring that the Comelec had disqualified Bayan Muna and the poll body said the bloody rumor was and the partylist is running. The ploy is to confuse the people and convince them that a vote for Bayan Muna will not be counted. This is classic psywar by experts in the mold of Eduardo Ano, who is Marcos Jr.’s national security adviser and the principal impediment to the resumption of peace negotiations between the government (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).
The multi-pronged attack against the Makabayan Coalition senatorial slate and Bayan Muna is but the continuation of the plot to eliminate progressive forces that was hatched by the Duterte regime in 2018 and abetted by the United States. Aside from using guns, goons and gold against progressive organizations, the Marcos Jr. regime is closing the door shut for parliamentary debate to enable political dynasties to monopolize power and preclude any solution to the country’s structural problems.
By not cleaning up its act about the 3.5 software “update,” Comelec has become complicit in electoral after the dubious dump of more than 20 million votes at 8:12 p.m. on May 9, 2022 to ensure that the assembled “Team Unity” would lead its adversaries by a mile. The Comelec never worked to open up the reports on the dubious transmitted reports and even walked back on its promise to look into ballot boxes that contained the receipts. Worse, Comelec reportedly paid P1.2-billion for the use of an IP address that was available for free. This year, the Comelec chose to award the supply contract for ACMs to Miru Systems for P18 billion but the ACMs would not end up as Comelec property since they are merely leased.
The appointment of George Erwin Garcia as Comelec chief was already problematic at the outset since he used to be a lawyer for Marcos Jr. There is no barring him from working to create a scenario whereby the majority of winners in the Senate will come from the two faces of the same rotten coin. With majority of the winning senators in the midterm elections, Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio is toast in her impeachment trial. Maneuvering to make Bong Go at the top of the heap is practically telling the Duterte camp to prepare him for the 2028 presidential election.
Funny, indeed, since the 2022 Senate race had Robinhood Padilla as the topnotcher. Now, it is Bong Go. Both are caricatures of a lawmaker. Go wants to function as the champion of the Departments of Health and Social Development while not doing his work as a lawmaker. He should stick to statutory construction rather than punish newspaper readers with his press releases daily. With what happened in 2022 and what is happening now in the midterm election, Comelec and all candidates should be scared stiff by manual counting, which is a better check against digital electoral fraud. This type of fraud has already happened in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America and it caused various countries to return to manual counting.
Computer experts are roundly condemning the Comelec for claiming that version 3.5 of the election management system (EMS) was used after a third-party audit. They said that when the 3.4 software was elevated to 3.5, the codes in the software were changed to mean it was debugged, some features were added, or the security system was upgraded. Why was the version changed if nothing was changed with the source code? They are asking that Comelec produce the audit documents. Who did the audit? Were they qualified, and where is the audit report that said version 3.4 passed digital and legal muster? Moreover, they want to know everything contained in versions 3.4 and 3.5. Where are the Hash Manifests for 3.4 and 3.5? They are needed to compare the software contents and to know if the codes were, indeed, reviewed using appropriate tests. If Garcia cannot answer these questions, then he has no business leading the Comelec. (DIEGO MORRA)
