Partylist group appeals to SC to compel poll body resolve votes discrepancy
Supreme Court of the Philippines in Manila INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / RICHARD A. REYES
The partylist group Confederation of Non-Stocks Savings and Loan Associations Inc. (Consla) has asked the Supreme Court to act on their appeal which sought to compel the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to order an investigation into the discrepancy in the number of votes it received last May 9, 2016 elections.
ConslaA, now called Alliance of Non-Stock Savings and Loan Institutions (Ansli), filed a motion for reconsideration after the high court dismissed their petition for intervention that urged the high court to compel Comelec to release the results of the random manual audit of 715 vote counting machines and to subject the source codes and hash codes that were certified on January 26, 2016; February 9, 2016 and February 11, 2016 to an independent audit of information and technology experts.
Consla was one of the 115 party-list groups accredited by the Comelec to participate in the May 9, 2016 elections for congressional posts,
The petition was filed following its discovery of certain inconsistencies in the results projected by the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and Comelec.
The high court, however, dismissed their petition early this year.
In a letter addressed to Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, Consla, (now Ansli), led by its President Col. Ricardo L. Nolasco Jr. (retired Air Force officer), a copy of which was provided to reporters over the weekend lamented that what they have received from the high court was an undated notice merely stating that their petition was denied.
“We moved for the reconsideration of the Supreme Court’s resolution on the ground that the unsigned resolution is contrary to law for its failure to state clearly and distinctly the facts and the law on which the denial was based,” Nolasco said in the letter.
“Hence, petitioner-intervenor Consla partylist respectfully submitted that the resolution is void and deemed legally inexistent,” he added.
Nolasco said, their motion for reconsideration was filed last June but to date, they have not received any response from the high court.
The group said they wanted to know the truth on what happened during the canvassing for the 2016 elections.
They said their own investigation showed discrepancy between the votes garnered by Consla as reported by the PPCRVs quick count and the Comelec’s final and official tally.
“We found out that PPCRV’s results, at various times, differed from the official Comelec count with respect to the votes which Consla garnered. More disturbing, we found that our votes have been shaved or manipulated. Consla ultimately ended up with far fewer votes than the tally of votes appearing in PPCRV’s unofficial count in the first two days of canvassing,” the group said.
As of May 10, 2016, the group said PPCRV tally showed that Consla already had 523,753 votes as of 11 a.m. and 555,896 votes as of 12 noon to occupy rank #14 in the tally. However, when Comelec finished canvassing the votes, Consla only garnered a total of 213,814 votes and its ranking went down to number 54.
“”How this came to be is unknown as the results from the PPCRV should, in theory, be the same as the Comelec’s, having been sourced from a parallel server counting the exact same votes,” Consla said in their letter.
The group said PPCRV blamed connection issues while the Comelec stayed silent on their questions.
“We could have easily kept our silence but more than anything else, we feel that we owe it to our members and to the Filipino people to ensure that the truth is known and the sanctity of their votes are upheld and respected,” Consla said.
“It is our ardent hope that the underlying facts and circumstances be investigated; that necessary electoral reforms will be implemented to prevent discrepancies from happening in the future,” the group added. /jpv
