Former executives of different institutions released a manifesto that called for the truth and transparency in the conduct of the national polls last May 9.
The manifesto was posted by Franklin Ysaac, former president of the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines, on Facebook on June 20.
It was undersigned by the following executives:
- Ysaac
- Eliseo Rio Jr. (former Department of Information and Communications Technology)
- Augusto Lagman (former National Citizens Movement for Free Elections National chairman)
In their manifesto, the three former officials expressed their strong position about the existence of irregularities throughout the entire election process. It addressed the Commission on Elections.
“As such, we have come to question the integrity of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), the Automated Election System (AES) through Smartmatic, and the results of the election,” they said.
They also called on the Comelec to conduct a “real” Random Manual Audit, citing such a mandate under the AES Law.
This was stated in section 29 of the law. The provision reads as follows:
“There shall be a random manual audit in one precinct per congressional district randomly chosen by the Commission in each province and city.”
The signatories further suggested the use of the tambiolo or a fish bowl raffle system in selecting the precincts to be audited. They added that the activity must be witnessed by the people.
“Open the ballot boxes to be witnessed by the people, use the tambiolo system in selecting the 757 precincts, count the ballots manually, and allow the SC cards to be audited by the independent I.T. professionals,” they said in the manifesto.
Moreover, the former officials also expressed support for similar petitions other voters have launched to demand the truth and transparency “in the conduct and results of the May 2022 election.”
“We are nonpartisan. We do not belong to any political party; neither do we receive any material support from any donor. We are doing this to ensure that the 2022 elections reflect the true will of the people,” they said.
May 2022 elections findings
The following is a summary of their findings after the closing of the May 9 polls:
- “Highly statistically improbably” results generated by the Comelec transparency servers that were released immediately to the media even if many voters have not cast their votes yet
- Reports of vote-counting machines breakdowns, stalled voting, and long queues and hours of waiting for voters
- “Surreptitious manner” in configuring secure data cards and printing ballots before Election Day
- “Non-transparent procedure” of Comelec when they conducted the random manual audit at the Diamond Hotel
- Poll watchdog Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) merely manually counting the same election returns “without any means of independently authenticating these ERs”
- Deletion of Comelec services which were perceived as “surprising or undue haste”
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Ysaac, Lagman and Rio also made a similar appeal for a citizen-initiated random manual edit of votes during a forum early this month.
They said that a manual audit for votes will help clear the air on the speculations surrounding the results of the election polls.