Brillantes to Gus Lagman: Let’s have a handshake and help us out

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – After challenging former Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioner Augusto Lagman to a debate, poll chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. said Wednesday that what he really wanted was a dialogue with his former high school classmate.

“I want to meet with him, with the public watching, and I would like to talk to him and say ‘imbes na nagdedebate tayo pwede ba magkamayan na lang tayo at tulungan mo na lang kami,'” Brillantes told reporters during a press conference.

(Instead of arguing, let’s have a handshake and help us out.)

“If ever there will be a debate, I ask that it be converted into a dialogue,” he said. “[He was] once a member of this commission, I think it’s his obligation to help us and not to charge us or hit us too much [from] outside [the Comelec],” he said.

Brillantes also said that he and Lagman are “very close” friends who have known each other since high school when they went to San Beda.

“Kilala ko naman si Gus eh, hindi kami pwede mag-away, konting debate pero hindi away,” he said.

(I know Gus; we cannot engage in a fight; perhaps a little debate but not a full blown fight.)

Previously, Brillantes challenged Lagman to a debate after the latter said in radio interviews that the absence of a source code that could be reviewed by political parties and interested groups would cast doubt on the results of the automated elections.

The source code is the software that runs the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines which count, canvass, and transmit the votes.

A legal dispute in the United States between the owner of the PCOS technology, Dominion Voting Systems Inc., and Smartmatic Inc., the company contracted by Comelec to conduct the automated elections, has caused the source code to be unavailable for review.

Brillantes had been negotiating between the two camps to have the source code released but after several weeks of failed negotiations, he eventually gave up saying it was already “too late and too close to the elections.”

Lagman, during an interview with Radyo Inquirer 990AM Tuesday, said: “We don’t know if the counting is accurate, if there’s an anomaly or none. We will never know. That’s the problem that’s why we put it in law because we need to know if the source code will be fixed”

Brillantes however assailed Lagman for complaining too much to media.

“Why are they too noisy outside when they don’t see the things that are happening inside everyday?” he said.

“He doesn’t talk to us … he is a former commissioner but he [is] noisy outside and repeatedly saying that we should prepare our contingency plans, which we already have,” Brillantes added.

He further said that he does not want to debate with anyone especially with the elections less than a month away.