No quorum for early Congress canvass
By Jess Diaz (The Philippine Star) Updated May 14, 2010 12:00 AM
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MANILA, Philippines - Lawmakers are open to an early congressional canvassing of votes for president and
vice president but mustering a quorum might pose a problem.
Speaker Prospero Nograles said May 24 would be a realistic target for the start of a canvass, as proposed
by Mandaluyong City Rep. Neptali Gonzales II, who is House senior deputy majority leader.
Some lawmakers have expressed apprehension that getting a quorum might be a problem since many of
those who got reelected might be on vacation while those who lost might not want to show up.
Without a quorum, Congress cannot convene and the proclamation of winners may be delayed.
Nograles said he would also ask the congressional oversight committee on poll automation to conduct a
random manual audit of election results “to dispute allegations that so many precinct count optical scan
machines have been pre-programmed to favor certain candidates.”
Gonzales said he trusts that his colleagues would work for a quorum “since this is our constitutional duty
and could be our last act as members of the outgoing 14th Congress.”
The Senate and the House are scheduled to resume session on May 31 after the long election campaign.
The two chambers would then convene into a national canvassing board to tabulate the presidential and
vice presidential results.
But according to House Secretary-General Marilyn Yap, the two chambers have the option to meet earlier
and start as a canvassing body even without President Arroyo calling for a special session.
All that is needed is for the Senate and the House to agree to meet in joint assembly to canvass the votes.
Two more congressmen – Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro City and Eduardo Gullas of Cebu – have
also joined the mounting calls for an early congressional count of votes for president and vice president.
“We have to determine who are the winners as soon as possible. Prolonging the canvass is not in synch
with the automation of our elections and fuels more suspicions that some unscrupulous persons are out to
manipulate the results,” Rodriguez said.
He said an early tabulation could also resolve the dispute between vice presidential candidates Sen. Manuel
Roxas II and Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay.
“Let us meet on Monday, May 17, or if that is not possible, on May 24. Most tabulations in the provinces are
already finished, and the certificates of canvass that we need should already be available,” he said.
In the unofficial canvass, Sen. Benigno Aquino III of the Liberal Party is leading his closest rival, former
President Joseph Estrada, by about five million votes.
On the other hand, Binay, Estrada’s running mate, is ahead of Roxas, Aquino’s teammate, by about 800,000
votes.
“The sooner we proclaim the president-elect and the vice president-elect, the better to allow an expeditious
changeover, and put the entire nation at ease,” Gullas said.
He said there is no point in waiting for the resumption of session on May 31 to start the canvass.
What could drag the count is the plan of Estrada’s camp to contest the apparent victory of Aquino by alleging
fraud and wrong handling of canvass documents.
Make it quick
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri also want the two chambers to
convene immediately as national board of canvassers.
“I want to dispose of the problem as early as possible. But under our rules, we are supposed to reconvene
to canvass the votes for president and vice president at the end of May,” Enrile said.
Enrile said he has asked his colleagues to determine if they can attend the session earlier than the May 31
schedule.
Zubiri lamented that while the Commission on Elections was fast in the transmission of votes at the national
canvassing board at the Philippine International Convention Center, it was slow in providing the Senate with
copies of the certificates of canvass (COCs) for the president and vice-president.
As of press time, the Senate has just received 43 of the 276 COCs nationwide.
“So I appeal to the Comelec to speed up the delivery of the electronic COCs. We can start the canvassing but
if we do not have the certificates to canvass, what do we have to do this for? What is important, the
electronically transmitted as well as the manually transmitted COCs be delivered as soon as possible,”
Zubiri said.
Enrile vowed that Congress would be able to proclaim the new president by June 30.
“One thing I can assure the nation and the people, as far as I am concerned, I will see to it that we have a
proclaimed president before June 30,” he said.
“We have to have a proclaimed president and vice-president before June 30. If the COCs will not come, then
we have no other recourse but to open the electronically transmitted COCs with the participation of the entire
nation if possible, media, including all the political parties, and canvass the votes transmitted to us
electronically,” he added.
They also expressed belief that the House might find it difficult to muster a quorum.
Enrile and Nograles are meeting today to address the early canvassing of COCs.
No problem with Palace
At Malacañang, presidential spokesman Ricardo Saludo said Mrs. Arroyo is open to calling for a special
session to speed up the canvassing, but only if Congress signifies its intention to hold one.
“So if Congress would like to call a special session then it can be considered by the Palace,” Saludo said.
Gullas said he has sent telegrams to the President, Enrile and Nograles to propose the holding of a special
session to facilitate the canvassing of votes.
Saludo said a formal communication from Congress is very important.
“They have to tell us, they have to give an indication that they want this and they also have to give an
indication that they are actually ready to start canvassing because they need some preparations there,”
Saludo said.
“It’s not something like a normal session of Congress. It’s something that would need some study on the
part of Congress as well as the Palace and also the affected candidates and their lawyers,” he added.
New senators
Meanwhile, the Comelec decides today if it can proclaim the winning senators tomorrow.
But Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said they would have to decide if they would proclaim all
the 12 winners or just the top six.
“We will have session (today) and we’ll talk about that. We’ll see,” Larrazabal told reporters.
Lakas-Kampi-CMD’s Ramon Revilla Jr. had overtaken fellow actor-turned-politician Jinggoy Estrada for the
top slot as of yesterday.
Based on 21.8 percent of the provincial certificates of canvass, Revilla got 11 million votes against Estrada’s
10.6 million votes.
During the canvassing last May 11 and 12, Estrada, of the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino, was leading the polls.
The 12th or last slot is a tossup between Manuel Lapid of Lakas-Kampi and Ana Theresa Hontiveros-
Baraquel of the LP.
In yesterday’s canvassing, Lapid dislodged Baraquel in the last slot with 6.1 million votes and 5.6 million
votes, respectively.
While Lapid was an action star before he became governor of Pampanga, Baraquel was the representative
of party-list group Akbayan in Congress. With Sheila Crisostomo, Marvin Sy, Christina Mendez
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Voting machines malfunction
By Sheila Crisostomo (The Philippine Star) Updated May 05, 2010 12:00 AM
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MANILA, Philippines - Fears of election failure intensified yesterday after some of the precinct count optical
scan (PCOS) machines to be used by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) failed test runs in some
parts of the country, prompting a stop to the testing and a recall of the machines.
President Arroyo ordered Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) chairman
Ray Anthony Chua to meet with Comelec and Smartmatic officials to see what could be done to address the
problem.
Mrs. Arroyo’s election lawyer Romulo Macalintal said postponement of the elections “is the only remedy to
prevent a failure of election.”
Smartmatic president for Asia-Pacific Cesar Flores said when the testing started last Monday, some PCOS
machines produced “contradictory” reading of the ballots for local elective posts.
“The first thing to do is look at all these reports and go to different possibilities of errors and finally it was
narrowed down to configuration issue,” Flores said during a press conference at the Comelec.
The conference was also attended by Makati congressman and Joint Congressional Oversight Committee
for Poll Automation co-chairman Teddy Boy Locsin, Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV)
chairperson Henrietta de Villa and Chua, among others.
The names of candidates for national posts were printed on the ballots with a single space in between
rows, while the names of the local bets are in double spaces.
During the testing, the machines were able to count the votes cast for the candidates in the first row but it did
not read the votes in the second row presumably because of the space between the two rows.
“It will read this candidate as blank space. It’s a human error. It had already been detected,” said Flores, who
said Smartmatic and its Filipino partner Total Information Management Corp. (TIM) would assume
responsibility since it is a “technical issue.”
After testing, the teachers serving as Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) are supposed to seal the PCOS
machines, which will be opened only on election day.
Birth pains of going high-tech
To address the problem, Smartmatic-TIM will replace the four-gigabyte compact flash (CF) memory cards
installed in all the PCOS machines assigned to each of the 76,000 polling precincts.
The cards contain the “polling precinct information” for a certain PCOS machine.
Because of this, the machine cannot be used in any other precinct without being configured first.
“The procedure is to replace the compact flash with corrected configuration. This will force us to stop (the
testing and the) sealing for the next couple of days. We’ll resume (tomorrow). It is a logistical challenge.
Technically, it’s an easy correction,” Flores said, brushing aside fears that the glitch would lead to failure of
the polls.
He said the testing and the sealing, supposed to be done seven to three days before election day, were
meant to “deny fraud and cheating by showing how the system is counting and also to detect failure in
hardware or software.”
Flores gave assurance that Smartmatic-TIM could acquire all the needed memory cards in time for the
resumption of the testing and sealing tomorrow.
The Comelec had leased 82,200 PCOS machines from the joint venture but some 6,000 of them are spare.
A recipe for chaos
The joint venture is presently assessing how many “jurisdictions” were affected by the glitches.
However, as a rule, if a PCOS machine fails the test in one precinct, all the units are automatically grounded.
So far, the affected areas include Manila, Makati City, Taguig City, Laguna, Palawan, Batangas and Mindoro.
At least 80 percent of the PCOS machines in Manila failed to work, according to Ali Atienza, son and
campaign manager of mayoralty candidate Lito Atienza.
In District 3, the machines failed to read the votes for congressman and mayor, and votes for Atienza were
credited in favor of incumbent Mayor Alfredo Lim.
Atienza also came out with zero votes even if there were at least eight or nines votes cast in his favor.
In Makati City, Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado complained that the machines tallied only the votes of his
opponent for the mayoralty, Erwin Genuino.
Tensions ran high in Batangas between BEIs and Comelec officials on the one hand, and representatives of
local candidates from 12 municipalities and two cities on the other, after the PCOS machines failed to work
for several reasons.
Hearing the news in Manila, the Comelec office in Isabela City in Basilan immediately recalled 48 machines
from the municipalities of Maluso and Tabuanlasa, causing alarm among local residents.
Several political parties immediately called on the poll body to check the flaws to ensure the sanctity and
credibility of the elections.
While other candidates were open to the possibility that there were just technical issues involved, others
believe that something more sinister is afoot.
Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino senatorial bet Joey de Venecia said the PCOS machines are a potential tool for
an “Electronic Garci,” and urged the Comelec to take legal action against Smartmatic.
“I will not say that the May 10 elections will be rigged, but I will say that the automated system is likely to fail,”
De Venecia said.
Public school teachers also expressed apprehension over the malfunctions of the machines and their late
delivery.
“We are getting worried. There are only a few days left before election day and we hope these problems will
be addressed because teachers will be in the frontline and will be the ones who will face the voters,”
Teacher’s Dignity Coalition national chairman Benjamin Basas said.
Poll watchdog Kontra Daya also raised the alarm over the machine’s failure, saying the problem will
compromise the integrity of the coming polls.
Comelec: No failure of elections
But Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento reiterated the poll body’s confidence that there would be no
failure of election resulting from this incident.
“We are optimistic that there will be no failure of election. We have discussed this. In the event that it will
happen, 30 percent will serve as backup for manual purposes,” he said, referring to the preparation being
done by the poll body to conduct manual polls.
The agency had printed 30 percent of the forms required for manual election like election returns, statement
of votes and certificates of canvassing.
However, Sarmiento admitted that the Comelec is not prepared to go manual beyond 30 percent as he
claimed that the agency does not think this will happen.
PPCRV’s De Villa also admitted that her confidence in a successful automated polls had diminished.
“(But) one good thing about it is that it has been detected and it can be solved,” De Villa said.
For his part, Macalintal said the Comelec, on its own, based on serious cause like the apparent failure of
PCOS machines to properly and correctly function, is authorized under Section 5 of the Omnibus Election
Code to postpone the polls.
“Under the present situation, a 15-day postponement would be reasonable to give time for the Comelec to
print additional forms for manual tally and canvass,” he said.
Deputy presidential spokesman Rogelio Peyuan said Mrs. Arroyo met with Chua yesterday and directed him
to give all his support to the Comelec. The CICT is a member of an advisory committee overseeing the
automation of the polls.
He said the President was very concerned with the developments in the run-up to the country’s first
nationwide automated polls, which she earlier repeatedly stated as one of her legacies.
“Mrs. Arroyo is continuously monitoring and trying to find out what really happened, not necessarily to find out
who is to be blamed because we are not just dealing with human beings. We are dealing with machines
and with technology,” Peyuan said.
He, however, said the Palace would not budge from its position against a parallel manual counting of the
votes.
AFP: No more turning back
Meanwhile, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) remains confident that the May 10 polls would be held
smoothly even in the face of several glitches.
“We are working for them (Comelec), we are supposed to trust them and we believe they are more than
capable of making this election credible,” said AFP Task Force HOPE (Honest, Orderly and Peaceful
Elections) spokesman Col. Ricardo Nepomuceno.
National Capital Region Command (NCRCOM) chief Rear Admiral Feliciano Angue, who oversees the
security of the PCOS machines in Metro Manila, ruled out a failure of election.
“A failure of election is unlikely. For example, in a worst-case scenario that the machines won’t work, we still
have the ballots and these can be counted manually,” he said during the delivery of counting machines in
Tandang Sora, Quezon City from a warehouse in Cabuyao, Laguna.
Angue said the other counting machines can still be delivered to polling precincts in Metro Manila before the
elections.
“We need two days to complete it. If the delivery would resume on May 7, this would be completed on May 9,”
Angue said in Filipino.
He said the military and the police are prepared to secure the movement of the machines once the technical
glitches are resolved.
“As far as our tasking is concerned, we are ready to do what the Comelec is asking us to do. But there is a
need to fix the machines and that is the problem of Smartmatic. Otherwise, the delivery would be
continuous,” Angue said. - With Marvin Sy, Jose Rodel Clapano, Rainier Allan Ronda, Roel Pareño, Ric
Sapnu, Ding Cervantes, Arnell Ozaeta, Alexis Romero, Sandy Araneta
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