No one is complaining — until now

technology provider Smartmatic, and the usual personalities and advocates of electoral reforms.

As expected, it became the tan-

versus TanDem

( Tanggulang

the revelations made by Senate President Vicente Sotto 3rd in his privilege speeches delivered on March 6 and 14, 2018.

Sotto had exposed the purported irregularities in the 2016 national and local elections, including the existence of queueing servers, early transmission of votes, and a foreign remote detailed discussion of the system logs in his possession and compared it point by point with Sotto’s revelations.

exposé was supported by the entries in the system logs.

Of course, again as expected,

not admit any errors on their part, much less the alleged early transmission of votes and secret servers.

- missions from the municipality

made on the

early morning of May 8, a day before the 2016 elections. However, as shown on the

- lec, no vote counting machines from Ragay were “powered on” on May 8. So, the big question now is who sent the transmissions early on that day?

Sen. Franklin Drilon was quick

Well, to the surprise of the senators,

itself. It turned out that the Senate - tion protest case of

, had subpoenaed - ted them to the SET.

“These are mortal wounds on

Playing hide- and- seek

Where are the system logs covering the fateful day of May

does not want to make them public. Sotto demanded that

logs immediately.

He said the come “complete with answers and ammunitions.”

The counsel for Smartmatic,

allegations, and even the supposed facts of cheating, simply raised doubts and that there was no concrete evidence to show that the voting changed or that there was cheating. He said that all data that were transmitted were encrypted, and even if they

they were still encrypted. He added: “The source code review should have exposed it.”

What source code review was

source code review is done a hundred times, these abnormalities would not be revealed. In fact, we are not even be sure that the voting machines are still running the same software that was placed in escrow with the Bangko Sentral were no complaints lodged before them. “I have yet to hear someone say that the election return that were transmitted to the canvassing center

not match,” he said. - - ted Tolentino by saying that “Nobody complains because nobody saw the counting.”

No one is complaining — until now.

Sotto’s sources

usual form as a whistleblower’s counsel. However, the whistleblowers were not there. This became a point of query from Sen. Francis Pangilinan. Why is there a lawyer without his witnesses?

Baligod claimed that he represents possible material wit-

allegations. The

senator then

in fact Baligod’ clients.

According to Baligod, the witnesses cannot surface yet because they are bound to a contractual obligation prohibiting them to disclose any information pertaining to the elections. His witnesses are credible and knowledgeable because they were part of the group that developed the software for

The quest continues

The Fight for Filipino Ingenuity

continues. The election advocates, as an offshoot of this Senate hearing, are convening again to plan their next moves. The group will be pushing for possible alternatives to Smartmaticsupplied election systems, including hybrid systems.

Even Sotto expressed some willingness to use hybrid systems. I know that some congressmen share the same sentiment, too. What then? Do we just wait and