National Election is fast approaching. Perhaps, after a long deliberation, you have decided whom to vote, partisan or non partisan. Now is the time to dedicate time so that your vote will really be respected and be counted. I am talking about the Comelec the governmental agency entrusted by us to respect the sanctity of our ballot.

Thirty year ago, perhaps some of you were not been born, the Sanctity of the Filipino ballot was not respected. This has led, aside from other causes, the Filipinos to stage the EDSA I peaceful revolution.

Since, then we trusted the COMELEC until the dagdag bawas scheme was discovered by many candidates.

Some brought it to the open which appeared in our daily papers. There was even a clamor to give us back our democracy because it was stolen by the COMELEC.  CERTAINLY WE CANNOT NOW DENY THE FACT THAT THERE IS SOMETHING FISHY GOING ON IN THE COMELEC.   It is for no whimsy reason that some concerned citizen has taken this advocacy seriously to the level of eroding the credibility of the COMELEC.

Perhaps what could be considered as a success is the decision of the Supreme Court filed by Richard Gordon to enable the  Comelec to print out the so-called Voter’s Verification Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).  Yet it is incomplete and would not absolutely verify the exactness of the alternative manual count. 

Weighing the above high level observations, there seem to be a pattern on the side of the COMELEC to hide something from the public. Others speculate that already based on these findings one could expect the outcome of the coming elections as to who has the highest bid with the COMELEC.  This can not but be the administration candidates since they have the most accessible possibility.

What Justice Leonen seem to suggest together with some advocates including Glenn Chong who interestingly was heared over the radio this Tuesday in Aklan, is to secure the following measures:

(1) Proclaim the winners only after a complete, correct and credible count of the official certificates of canvass (COC). During the 2013 elections, senatorial candidates were proclaimed winners based merely on the Comelec’s so-called “group canvass report,” even if only 72 out of the 304 COCs had been duly canvassed.

(2) Allow a thorough review of the Source Code. True, it has been deposited in the Bangko Sentral vault. Nonetheless, questions still linger because it was not reviewed prior to the deposit.

(3) Implement the random manual audit strictly in accordance with law.
So, what are we going to do?:

1. In these, one could realistically conclude that a manual post voting precinct random survey could be feasible: that citizens could organize themselves to fill up a prepared form similar to the ballot and fill it up separately in order to be submitted immediately outside the precinct. This is legal. The results could be then tallied independently. This requires a pre-organized volunteers which could done by PPCRV for example.

2.  The source of fraud during the last elections were really the Source Code embedded in VEM machines. It could be preprogrammed in order to give a determined results by experts. The source code is now kept in Bangko Central Vault without prior verification by the parties involved. To make this election credible, it is my strong opinion that this source code should be transparent and its operational modes and processes be open to all representatives experts of all parties. Gone are the manual counting, but the assurance of our votes should always be present. COMELEC claimed it requires election postponement to buy time. Really?

3. I strongly suggest that rhe present  SOURCE CODE which was programmed outside the country, be subpoenaed by the court, requiring  someone would file a case, so that it could be examined to become more transparent to all parties involved. COMELEC says it needs time which might postpone the elections. So be it.  For me it is better to have a delayed credible elections than make it on time with a non credible and doubtful results.

Let’s continue to pray for our country!