Comelec sets public presentation of source code

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes

MANILA, Philippines -The controversial precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machine source code will finally be presented to the public Thursday in a press conference, Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. said.

“It will be presented tomorrow [and then] turned over to be reviewed [before being] deposited in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP),” Brillantes told reporters in an ambush interview after he attended oral arguments in the Supreme Court (SC) Wednesday.

The source code is the computer program that runs the PCOS machines. It has been held back by Dominion Voting Systems Inc., the owner of the PCOS technology, pending a legal dispute against Smartmatic, the automated elections system contractor of Comelec.

Several sectors have been clamoring for a review of the source code to ensure the credibility of the elections.

Brillantes had stated in several previous interviews that the source code in 2010 was open for review but no one had applied to review it. He said that the lack of a source code review in 2010 did not affect the validity of that elections.

Representatives from SLI Global Solutions Inc., the international independent certifier, and Dominion will be present during the press conference. Brillantes however said that they will not speak during the event to avoid making statements that could affect the case in the US.

SLI had conducted an independent review of the source code to ensure that there was nothing wrong with it. Brillantes said that the SLI-certified source code had arrived in the country last Sunday.

Dominion’s “master” source code had arrived Tuesday night brought by its representatives, Brillantes said. Both SLI and Dominion had already met to check that the source code they are both carrying are the same.