MANILA, Philippines?With just 41 days left before Election Day, Sen. Benigno ?Noynoy? Aquino III voiced doubts that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) could prevent a failure of elections and urged the public to remain vigilant.

In a press conference, Aquino said he had directed his campaign staff in the Liberal Party to confer with the church, election watchdogs, the diplomatic community, the military and police to avert the elections from being sabotaged through cheating or forced failure.

Aquino, the LP?s presidential candidate in the May 10 elections, said the military should be reminded to remain ?apolitical,? calling the armed forces ?a very necessary institution in preserving the stability of the state.?

Florencio Abad, LP campaign manager, cited a number of allegedly questionable moves made by the Comelec, specifically the lack of an independent review of the source code for the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines to be used in the electronic vote.

?There is no way of knowing what is inside the machines until they are individually tested in the precincts,? Abad said.

Disabled safety feature

He said that the ultraviolet safety features of the PCOS machines had been disabled. ?Fake ballots can pass through the machines.?

Abad also warned against what he said was the absence of a plan to conduct random auditing and a backup plan in case of computer breakdown and the delayed training of the board of election inspectors and technicians.

He said that the appointment of Gen. Delfin Bangit, a former close-in security officer of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, as head of the military and her plan to name a new chief justice of the Supreme Court had bolstered fears of massive cheating in the May vote.

3 worst-case scenario

Abad said one of three worst-case scenarios could occur in May?massive and wholesale cheating to favor the President?s candidate; partial failure of elections (no proclamation for the president, vice president and the senators) leaving the new House to elect its Speaker to take care of government; and a complete failure of elections with a military junta taking over.

LP vice presidential candidate Sen. Manuel ?Mar? Roxas II said that if the late President Corazon Aquino had to struggle with a ?Lutong Macoy? election against the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, her son was facing a similar ?Pritong Arroyo? election.

LP senatorial candidate Franklin Drilon said there was a pattern to undermine institutions, such as the appointment of purely partisan individuals to the Comelec, Office of the Ombudsman and the Supreme Court.

Drilon warned the President against ?underestimating? the people who would ?do what is needed and defend hard-earned democratic rights.?

But while Marcos and President Joseph Estrada stepped aside when faced with People Power rather than cause bloodshed to stay in power, Drilon said Ms Arroyo could act differently if confronted with the same situation.

Leave it to God

?She is of a different mold, she will not walk away,? said Drilon.

Aquino, however, would not guess how Ms Arroyo would react if faced with a people?s uprising.

?We had one cardinal who said at some point in time, we have to leave some things to God. We have a lot of things we can do but in the end, it is God who will act,? said Aquino.