The Philippine Online Chronicles

The presidential candidates ranked in the bottom three filed a temporary restraining order before the Supreme Court seeking to stop the Commission on Elections (Comelec) from destroying the compact flash (CF) cards used in the automated polls.

In a joint petition, Jamby Madrigal, Nick Perlas, and JC delos Reyes said the CF cards which were used in the Precinct Count Optical machines (PCOS) could be used as evidence to determine if the polls were rigged or not.

The petitioners said, “Should all said CF cards be destroyed and all said final testing and sealing data be deleted, the Filipino people, including all three petitioners who ran for President in the last elections, will never know what went wrong with the CF cards and what caused discrepancies between the vote totals electronically transmitted to the different Board of Canvassers and the vote totals appearing in the printed election returns.”

They questioned the alleged “indecent haste" with which the Comelec wants to destroy the CF cards and delete the FTS data. The petitioners also asked the high court to direct the poll body to turn over custody of the said items to Congress in accordance with the automation law, Gmanews.tv reported.

An earlier Comelec resolution required the deletion of the information in the CF cards. Resolution 8914 sought to destroy the 76,000 flash cards and delete the final testing and sealing data from the canvassing laptops used during the country’s first automated polls last May 10.

Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez also said the poll body has set the destruction of the recalled CFCs into motion.

The assailed Comelec Resolution, promulgated on May 12, “require the Board of Canvassers to bring the CCS laptop of the affected C/MBOC to Manila, and validate the correct election result for inclusion in the consolidation, deleting the FTS result from said C/MBOC, as well as in the Central, Backup and KBP servers.”

“Comelec’s justification for destroying the CF card and for deleting the FTS data does not outweigh the greater and more primordial right of the Filipino people to know if the P7-billion automated election system funded by their taxes really works or not,” said the petitioners.

The petitioners wanted the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee to review and assess the automated election system technologies.

But Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal gave his assurance that the flash cards will not be destroyed.  The CF cards will be turned over to Smartmatic-TIM but the Comelec would still have copies of the data files contained in the cards.