No No-El – Palace
But UNA fears source code glitches may prompt Comelec to suspend May 9 polls
Despite the discovery of glitches in the poll automated system, Malacañang remains hopeful the national and local elections will push through on May 9, 2016 as scheduled.
While the Palace exudes confidence, the oppo- sition United Na- t tionalistional ist
Alliance (UNA) expressed concern of a possible no- election ( No- El) scenario on May 9, 2016, citing the delays in the ballot printing schedule and the glitches in the source codes. UNA said these problems may prompt the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to in- voke its powers to suspend the national and local elections.
But Presidential Communications Operations Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. voiced trust and confidence in the Comelec in addressing the problems in the vote-counting machines and ensure the conduct of the automated elections as scheduled.
“Comelec is performing its task of ensuring the integrity of the national elections in May,” Colo- ma said in a text message when asked if the Palace
was worried about errors found in the poll software.
He said the poll body has also been “transparent in informing the public on what it is doing to deal with the source code problems that have been identified.”
With less than three months before Election Day, the Comelec is facing a string of problems, most recently the discovery of errors in the source codes of the Consolidated and Canvassing System (CCS) and the Vote Counting Machines ( VCMs). The source code is the human readable instructions that dictate what the automated election system will implement.
SLI Global Solutions, Inc., the US-based software testing company tasked by the Comele to review and certify the source codes before being used in the coming polls, discovered the errors that prompted the poll body to delay depositing the source codes at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
But Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista has already assured that efforts are being implemented to address the situation.
Despite Bautista’s assurance, UNA spokesman Mon Ilagan said he hopes that the delays are not deliberate and intentional to enable the Comelec to implore Section 5 of the Omnibus Election Code, which empowers the poll body to delay the elections within 30 days following the postponement.
“We hope that these issues and concerns being raised in relation to the delays and glitches will not be used as reasons to allow the Comelec to invoke their power to suspend the polls or force them to go back to manual voting,” Ilagan pointed out.
Section 5 of the Omnibus Election Code states that the Comelec has vested power to suspend the elections “in case of violence, terrorism, force majeure, and other analogous causes” that may cause for a failure to elect.
The Comelec has already hinted that some Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines were malfunctioning and fail to correctly read the ballots. This could be the result of a glitch in the source code.
On Tuesday, the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) said that Comelec is already behind schedule in the printing of ballots, and compounding the delay are other technical problems. These problems may force the Comelec to suspend elections in selected regions or localities.
The ballot printing was already postponed three times. The Comelec’s original schedule was January 26, then it was moved to February 1, then Feb. 8, and again reset to Feb. 15.
“We are all praying for a peaceful, trustworthy, orderly, and clean elections this coming May 9 – but with the reports of delays, deliberate or not, these are causes for alarm. It seems that someone is already laying the predicate and some do allow these problems to surface to give them enough window to manipulate the elections,” Ilagan said.
“We should not allow sinister parties to manipulate the elections, and Comelec must see beyond these delays and glitches and probe if there are quarters from within who are present to influence and exploit the situation,” said the spokesman of UNA, the party of presidential candidate Vice President Jejomar Binay.
“It is within the mandate of the Comelec to make sure that the conduct of the elections is fair, credible, honest, orderly, and peaceful. The term of President Aquino will be ending in a few months, this would be the best legacy he could leave behind,” Ilagan said.