Palace: It’s up to Comelec to probe ‘poll cheating’

Malacañang wants those behind the supposed cheating in the 2016 elections to be held accountable but is leaving it to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to look into the matter.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the executive branch would monitor developments on the issue because it may have involved stealing the mandate of the people.

“Perhaps we will move forward and make those who committed election offenses accountable,” Roque told reporters in Palawan yesterday when asked what would happen if it is proven that the 2016 election was tainted with irregularities.

“The preliminary investi- gation of election offenses is under the law department of Comelec. So we will watch out for that because the President is the implementer of the law and our election laws are very important because what is being stolen is the mandate of the people,” he added.

Roque expressed hope the issue would be probed by the Comelec and the Senate.

“We will just let them investigate. And we will see whether the President would order the investigative branches of government (to conduct their own probe),” he said.

Roque said there is no doubt that Duterte gained more than 16 million votes during the 2016 polls.

“So that (cheating) is possible. But the President will just let the Comelec investigate and determine whether election violations were committed,” he added.

Roque noted that only two electoral protests have been filed at the national level – that of former senator and vice presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and that of senatorial candidate and presidential political adviser Francis Tolentino.

“The mandate given (to the rest of the winning candidates) will not be erased because we do not have election contest other than vice president and the last seat in the Senate,” the presidential spokesman said.

For the Comelec, there is no reason yet to backtrack in the decision to purchase the vote counting machines (VCMs) first used in the 2016 polls.

According to Comelec spokesman James Jimenez, they could not abandon the decision despite the allegations of Sen. Vicente Sotto III that the 2016 elections were rigged.

“As for the option-to-purchase that they say we should stop, we will go with that. But right now, to pull the trigger, so to speak, just because two allegations were presented and were interrelated in a particular way, then that might not be the wisest thing to do,” said Jimenez.

The Comelec had decided to exercise its option-to-purchase provision in its contract with Smarmatic International after the budget allocated by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) for the 2019 midterm polls was deemed insufficient.