Protesters at Comelec allege fraud was committed during 2022 elections

Veteran activist Aristotle Socrates calls for transparency in the counting of votes during elections as he joined a demonstration in front of Comelec headquarters in Intramuros, Manila on June 23, 2023. (Photo by Sofia Abrogar)

MANILA, Philippines — People calling themselves anti-election fraud advocates gathered in front of Commission on Elections (Comelec) main office in Intramuros, Manila on Friday.

They were challenging the alleged “questionable” results of the 2022 national elections.

Majority of the protesters were senior citizens who also participated in the 1986 People Power Revolution.

Among them was 63-year-old Ronnie Amoroso.

He said he laments the effects of the fraud committed during the 1986 snap elections still plague the country’s justice system.

“I was part of the regime of Marcos Sr. and I am paying for his debts,” he claimed.

The demonstrators also included retired brigadier general and former Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) undersecretary Eliseo Rio.

Rio believes about 20 million votes tallied in the last hour of May 9, 2022 elections were actually non-existent.

He alleged the votes were sent to the poll body’s servers via “illegal private networks.”

Retired general and ex-DICT undersecretary Eliseo Reo smiles as he stands amid fellow protesters in front of Comelec main office in Manila on June 23, 2023. (Photo by Sofia Abrogar)

“There was an unbelievable peak count of [over] 20 million votes shown to the public by the Comelec Transparency Server (TS) at 8:02 p.m. on May 9, 2022, just an hour after the voting closed,” Rio expressed his surprise.

“In that first hour, nine major tasks had to be done first in all precincts, taking at least 19 minutes before any Vote Counting Machine (VCM) transmissions could start,” he recalled.

“Yet in the second hour when, logically, more VCMs should be ready to transmit, the TS count suddenly and unexplainably dropped to just [over] 13.2 million votes,” he wondered.

Rio had filed a petition before the Supreme Court (SC) in November that sought to prohibit telecommunication companies from deleting election transmission logs.

He was joined in the plea by National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections president and former Comelec commissioner Gus Lagman, and Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines former president Franklin Ysaac.

The petition had also asked to oblige telcos to release these logs and submit the documents to the High Court.

To this day, Rio said, no significant action has been taken by the SC justices.

READ: Ex-DICT, Comelec execs ask SC: Preserve poll transmission logs 

Rio, Lagman, and Ysaac— known as the TNTrio— also more recently filed another petition before the SC.

They sought to ban electronic voting technology company Smartmatic Philippines, Inc. from the country’s electoral processes.

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