Ex- Comelec official fears delay in proclamation of winners

Five days before Election Day, former Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, who supervised the first automated elections in 2010 and is now consultant of the Nationalist People’s Coalition, said there are a still lot of loose ends that need to be tied to make Monday’s election orderly. He is very concerned with very little time left to put things in order.

He wrote Comelec a letter Monday. One of the issues he raised was the procedure adopted by Comelec on the transmission of election results.

Larrazabal wrote: ““In a discussion last night with COMELEC Spokesperson Dir. Jimenez during the show with Ms Tina Monzon-Palma, it was mentioned that there is a proposed protocol in addressing possible scenarios where there may be multiple complaints on discrepancy as what was shaded in the ballot, and what appears in the voter receipt. One suggestion was that there must be a threshold on the number of complaints before the BEIs may request for a replacement VCM (Vote Counting Machine). I think this should be explored further by the Commission En Banc.”

Larrazabal said the contingency measures laid down by Comelec would result in a situation where “ the City of Municipal board of canvassers cannot transmit the results of the canvassing results of their board, ‘until results from all main SD cards have been imported’”.

“Which means that the Provincial Board of Canvassers will not receive any Consolidated Results from that BOC. The result would mean that the PBOC or even NBOC will not be able to complete its canvassing, and will NOT be able to proclaim winners on the provincial level (which includes ALL Provincial positions & members of the House of Representatives). This also means that the PBOC will not be able to complete the canvassing for the position of President and Vice-President,” he further said.

The domino effect. Larrazabal said, “ would be that the National Board of Canvassers may not be able to complete the canvassing of votes for the 12 positions of Senator, and Party-list.”

“All told, the above requirement may result in the hijacking of the canvassing of votes, and the proclamation of winners, for the national positions, “Larrazabal gave a possible alarming scenario.

His other concern is, at this late stage, there is still no protocol for the Board of Election Inspector to verify the HASH CODES of the VCMs. “There has to be a procedure, properly disseminated to the BEIs and stakeholders, on how to verify the authenticity of the software used in the VCMs all over the Philippines,” he said.

He continued:“This is accomplished by verifying the Hash Code of the VCM. The procedures should include how to resolve a dispute in case there is discrepancy in hash codes because THERE IS ONLY ONE HASH CODE FOR ALL VCMS all over the Philippines. The Hash Code for the VCM are found in the Initialization Report and the Election Return. Failure to do this will run counter to the thrust of COMELEC of being transparent. Upon verification, Hash Code for the VCM which was provided to political parties and stakeholders, is:

A1 47 91 C4 2F DA 95 7C 47 DB E3 EA 52 FB 2A A3
9D BF DA AF F6 83 68 7A 80 B6 9F 61 A1 13 EO F7

“In this regard, and with a similar concern, but with reference to the procedures of the Board of Canvassers, there is likewise NO INSTRUCTIONS for the BOC to review the hash codes of the Canvassing & Consolidating System. The representatives of the Dominant Majority and the Dominant Minority parties, major political parties and citizen’s arms SHOULD BE able to verify the Hash Code of the CCS. There is, as of today, likewise no procedure for this.

“There is also no protocol to follow if there is a discrepancy in the hash codes for both the VCM and CCS. The hash Code for the CCS released to the political parties and stakeholders is:

JHhUgS1VQOh7X6ZmWelpt3H3DhH1RdZn27H8YSIq22E=

“Please take note that if there is a discrepancy in the has codes of Either the VCM or CCS, there is presumed to be proof of tampered source codes, and use of an UNAUTHORIZED & ILLEGAL software.”

We share the hope of Larrazabal that these concerns will be addressed the soonest time possible for the peace and stability of democracy in this country.