Party-list group sees vote tally discrepancies as ‘dagdag-bawas’ sign

LUCENA CITY—Officials and members of  Confederation of Non-Stock Savings and Loan Associations Inc. (Consla) party-list group believe that vote padding and shaving (dagdag-bawas) and other forms of election fraud altered results of elections for party-list groups on May 9.

A member of the group in Quezon province said several cooperatives were mobilizing for protest actions to press for an investigation.

“We were cheated. The votes were manipulated, sort of dagdag-bawas,” said a ranking leader of Consla who requested anonymity because he lacked authority to speak on behalf of the group.

But a letter written by Consla to Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chair Andres Bautista pleaded for an investigation.

The letter, signed by Consla lawyer Rodolfo San Diego, said the group would use results of the quick count conducted by the  Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), an election watchdog, as one of the bases for its complaint.

The group also wrote to PPCRV chair Henrietta de Villa to raise the same concern.

Consla, its letters said, had attached screen grabs of PPCRV’s Twitter feeds of election results to show alleged discrepancies in the counting.

One of the feeds showed Consla getting 342,513 votes from 68,626 clustered precincts that had transmitted results to Comelec’s transparency server.

When result transmission was already 74.18 percent, San Diego said Consla’s votes peaked to 555,896 at noon of May 10.

“It therefore came as a surprise when the final tally of votes…showed that Consla garnered only a total of 213,814 votes at rank No.  54,” said the Consla lawyer.

He said Consla found it troubling that results transmitted to PPCRV’s transparency server were  different from those transmitted by precincts to the Comelec in real time.

PPCRV is the lone accredited quick count arm of the Comelec and got access to the Comelec’s transparency server under Comelec Resolution

No. 10105A.

“It is incumbent upon the Comelec to investigate inconsistencies and discrepancies” in election results, said the Consla letter to Bautista.

“How can votes canvassed by PPCRV from the transparency server, which are essentially the same votes canvassed by the Comelec, turn out completely different results,” the letter said.

Consla is one of 115 party-list groups accredited by the Comelec to take part in the May 9 elections.

To disregard the discrepancies, Consla said, would be to lend credence to other candidates’ claim of massive fraud during the elections. With a report from Tina  G. Santos in Manila