Brillantes: ‘I’ll bet my reputation’ to prove poll critics wrong

Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes Jr. FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. is willing to put his reputation on the line to prove that there was no poll fraud.

Brillantes was prompted to make the gamble over claims by some Information Technology (IT) experts that there was a strange “pattern” of votes.

Ateneo Professor Lex Muga claimed that there was a consistent “60-30-10” pattern of votes for the senatorial candidates of Team PNoy (60 percent), United Nationalist Alliance (30 percent), and independent candidates (10 percent). Muga used as basis the first 16 tallies of the National Board of Canvassers.

Brillantes, when asked by reporters during an ambush interview, insisted there was definitely no fraud.

The poll chief has been trumpeting that the elections were credible, and on Thursday he  stressed that “if they (critics) are saying there is a pattern, that means [the system] was programmed to be 60-30-10” but “definitely nothing was programmed.”

“I will bet my reputation. Nothing was programmed. If there is a pattern, it was just a coincidence probably,” he said.

Brillantes said he was willing to have all the ballots in the entire country opened, which he believes will show an almost perfect match between the ballots and the results from the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines.

“We will open the ballots. If they want we can open the [ballots] of the entire country,” Brillantes said.

“[I think] 98 to 99 percent of the ballots and the results of the PCOS will be the same. I will bet on it,” he said.