The Philippine Online Chronicles

Former President Joseph Estrada’s camp alleged the "massive marketing and selling" of pre-programmed CF (Compact Flash) cards which contain instructions for the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines to read the ballots. They said that an "electronic Garci" and "digital hocus PCOS" could have happened in the polls last Monday.

In a report, Estrada’s campaign manager former senator Ernesto Maceda said that their party, Partido ng Masang Pilipino (PMP), was approached by brokers offering CF cards – supposedly programmed to make a candidate win. Maceda said they have evidences to support their claim. Each CF card was allegedly priced at 30 to 50 million each. He said other political parties might have been offered the same.

Estrada’s election lawyer George Garcia said that “the replacement of thousands of compact flash cards after they failed in accuracy tests a week after the elections could have provided the opportunity for the entry of the pre-programmed cards.”

Last May 3, more than 76,000 malfunctioning CF cards were replaced after Comelec discovered errors in the reading of votes during the final testing and sealing of PCOS machines.

The errors included incorrect tallying of votes that occurred when the machines failed to read votes cast for one candidate or registered the votes of one candidate to another candidate. Comelec said the defective CF cards were "due to human error."

PMP also cast suspicion on the slow pace of delivery of election results. Senatorial candidate Francisco Tatad said they will consider filing a "constitutional action" that would nullify election results.

For its part, the Comelec said Estrada and his allies must present hard evidence. “These are very serious allegations,” said Comelec spokesman James Jimenez. He said the Comelec will act on these accusations—which he dismissed only as speculations—only if the Estrada camp shows proof of the alleged offer by unidentified persons before the elections to sell pre-programmed CF cards that would be deployed to favor certain candidates.

Don’t destroy evidence

The poll body earlier said that the recalled CF cards will be discarded. Comelec spokesman James Jimenez was quoted as saying that the Comelec fears the CF cards might fall into the wrong hands, a reason found inexcusable by various groups, according to Tribune Online.

But poll watchdog Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CENPEG) asked Comelec not to destroy the CF cards and insisted on an independent review of the content of the controversial CF cards. IT consultant Lito Averia, said Comelec does not have the right to destroy the CF cards that may later be needed in the auditing of the entire automated election system or when election protests are filed.

Averia further said, “Comelec should now come up with procedural controls to avoid the same errors from recurring should the same automated election system (AES) technology be used for future elections.”

The various "irregularities" observed in the May 10 polls prompted watchdogs to call for an independent audit of the automated polls.

Other candidates regard polls as flawed

Meanwhile, other presidential candidates Jamby Madrigal, Nicanor Perlas and JC delos Reyes called the automated elections system "flawed" and "unproven." According to Madrigal, "there are some questions that need to be answered."

“How did the Commission on Elections manage to recall, replace, debug and reprogram the 76,000 CF cards in a few days? What happened to the supposedly recalled CF cards? Where are they? How sure are we that the same CF cards were not pre-programmed to favor particular candidates? Is the automated poll system really fool-proof? With the disabling of the UV lamps, how sure are we that unused ballots were not filled up and counted in favor of certain candidates?" she asked in an Inquirer.net report.

She added, "this stand is not about winning or losing but about doing the right thing for the Filipino people at the risk of going against current popular public opinion."

The three candidates stressed the need to "make sure that the elections in 2013 will be cleaner, fairer and more accurate."