SEN. Sherwin Gatchalian wants the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to explain the delay in the transmission of the results of the May 12 midterm elections.
The Senate, Gatchalian said, has oversight functions over the conduct of elections.
Gatchalian said the Comelec can clarify incidents that happened during the polls when the Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms and People’s Participation conducts an inquiry.
He said the Senate hearing will give the poll body the opportunity to erase doubts or speculations that irregularities tainted the midterm polls.
In an interview with radio dzBB, Gatchalian questioned the reported delay in the transmission of election results, pointing out that the poll body tapped the services of a new company to be its partner during the May 12 elections and used modern automated machines.
However, he said news reports indicated that there were delays of two to three hours in the transmission of election results in some areas.
“Nakita ko na ‘yung dating automated elections ay within two hours alam na natin kung sino ang panalo. Pero dito sa election na ito… na-delay ‘yung transmission ng mga results almost two to three hours (In past automated elections, we already knew the winners within two hours. But in this election, there was a delay in the transmission of results for almost two to three hours),” he said.
He likewise recalled that during the 2022 polls, the proclamation of winners was made within hours after the closing of the polling precincts. But in the May 12 elections, he said the winners were known one day after the polls.
He also noted reports that around 2 to 3 million were supposedly added to the votes of a senatorial candidate but was later corrected by the poll body.
“Yung mga ganyang glitches ay dapat maiwasan dahil ayaw natin na magkaroon sa utak ng ating mga kababayan na nagkaroon ng aberya. Dapat walang technical glitch dahil tandaan natin, bilyon ang binayad natin dito, hindi maliit na pera. Kaya nga tayo nagpalit ng [partner] para mas magaling ‘yung ipapalit natin (These kinds of glitches should not have happened because we don’t want our countrymen to think that there were irregularities. There should have been no technical glitches because remember, we paid billions of pesos for these new machines. We picked a new [partner] so that the old system will be changed),” he added.
Gatchalian said he is hopeful that the random manual count which the Comelec will do in the coming days will determine the accuracy of the vote counting machines.
Gatchalian said that during the Senate hearings, the Comelec will have the opportunity to clarify the issues.
“Dito namin tatanungin kung ano ba talaga ang nangyari (It will be during the oversight hearing that we will ask what really happened,” he said.
Asked if he was satisfied with the conduct of the May 12 elections, Gatchalian said “I am more satisfied in the 2022 elections” because the reports were known earlier and faster.
Gatchalian’s statements were made after the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) said technical issues, such as different formats, caused a delay in the release of “our usual election data reports.”
“Later, we noticed discrepancies between our internal count and publicly reported figures by other transparency server receiving parties. Out of an abundance of caution and our commitment of accuracy, we held off publishing the results while we verified the data,” the PPCRV said in a statement after the elections.
“Upon further analysis, we found that our data – though different at the time – was accurate, reflecting proper filtering of duplicate entries… This makes the audit activities such as the Random Manual Audit (RMA) and Unofficial Parallel Count (UPC) much more important. The RMA aims to dispel potential issues with overvoting or unintentional voting as reported quite frequently during election day,” it said.
It also said that the UPC will compare the physical election returns with the transmitted returns that “even if the transmitted returns are late, they can be compared for accuracy.”
