PCOS glitches found common in Visayas, Mindanao

DUMAGUETE CITY—Glitches marred the final testing and sealing of several precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines in Negros Oriental and Davao City.

Some PCOS machines in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental, didn’t accept ballots and count votes.

Lawyer Juvenal Tuale, Negros Oriental acting provincial election supervisor, said there was still time to correct the errors in time for Monday’s elections.

“I believe that this is because our PCOS machines are not all brand new,”  Tuale said.

Election officers in Davao City blamed members of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) for problems encountered by PCOS machines.

Davao election officer Aimee Perolino-Ampoloquio said BEI members had been given proper training, and there should be no excuse for their errors.

In Barangay (village) Piapi, a PCOS machine refused to accept and count ballots. The same problems occurred in some towns in Negros Oriental.

The Commission on Elections received reports that three PCOS machines in Zamboanguita town and the cities of Bayawan and Guihulngan didn’t function.

In Davao, a teacher reported that a machine suddenly turned off due to an error caused by its thermal printer.

Redemptor Banayo, PCOS technician, said it was “normal” for the machines to shut down after experiencing thermal printer issues.

“I think this is understandable because these machines were stored and unused for years,”  Banayo said.

In Dagupan City, Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) reported that three PCOS machines shipped to four cluster precincts in the city might have been tampered with.

Evelyn Joy Estrada, who supervises the PPCRV team at  Dagupan City National High School (DCNHS), said one of her members discovered the tampered seals of the machines at 10 a.m.

“One of the machines was even missing,” Estrada said. “But when we came back more than  an hour later, it was already there.”

Upon learning about the tampered seals, Estrada said she immediately reported the matter to the PPCRV Dagupan office at St. John the Evangelist Cathedral. With a report from Gabriel Cardinoza, Inquirer Northern Luzon