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Friday, March 29, 2024

VP vote recount: Marcos bares missing audit logs

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THE Supreme Court, sitting as a Presidential Electoral Tribunal,  discovered irregularities such as wet ballots and missing audit logs during the start of its manual recount of votes for the vice presidential race in 2016 on Monday.

Former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. made this disclosure claim even as he cited the missing audit logs and wet ballots from clustered precincts in Bato town in Camarines Sur after revisors opened the ballot boxes.

Marcos said 39 out of 40 ballot boxes from Bato town did not have audit logs.

“At the outset of the recount, we already discovered these missing audit logs. They couldn’t tell where those audit logs went. This means somebody opened the ballot boxes and took the audit logs before closing them again,” Marcos said in an interview.

Marcos, who disputed the proclamation of Vice President Leni Robredo, said audit logs are very important in the case as they recorded transactions made in specific clustered precincts.

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“An audit log is a record of when the VCM [vote-counting machine] was opened, when the ballot was inserted, when the votes were transmitted to the server and when the VCM was again closed. But almost all the logs there in that town are missing. The question is, why?” the former senator said.

Marcos said this discovery only reinforced their suspicion over the conduct of the elections, especially following the recent revelations of Senator Vicente Sotto III that there were early transmissions of votes before Election Day based on some audit logs given to him.

“We’re going to have to find a way to recover those audit logs somehow. Since we are using computers, maybe it’s possible that those audit logs are in the database,” Marcos said.

Revisors also found four ballot boxes with wet ballots inside.

“If these ballots had been wet since the election two years ago, these should have dried up by now. But this means the ballots were dampened only when they were transferred here,” Marcos said.

The wet ballots, which were already illegible, were set aside, he added.

THE RECOUNT BEGINS. Former Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is greeted by supporters after attending the recount of votes in the contested 2016 vice presidential race at the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal. Norman Cruz

Under PET rules, wet ballots may be revised or recounted if they are still readable. Otherwise the tribunal will refer to the ballot images for the revision of votes. 

Robredo’s lawyer Romulo Macalintal dismissed Marcos’ insinuation that the wet ballots and missing audit logs indicate irregularities in the 2016 vice presidential race.

Macalintal said the ballots got wet during a typhoon sometime in December.

Macalintal also said Marcos should not make a big deal out of the missing audit logs since he can request a copy of the same from the Supreme Court or the Comelec.

Marcos said it may take more than  three months to finish the revision of his three pilot provinces, Camarines Sur, Iloilo and Negros Oriental.

“The pace of the recount seems to be slow. But this has just started and we expect it to speed up once the process is streamlined,” he said.

Marcos inspected the venue for the recount at the gym of the SC-Court of Appeals Building before greeting hundreds of his supporters who gathered in front of the SC compound.

Marcos’ wife, Liza Araneta-Marcos and sister, Imee, accompanied him to the SC for the start of recount of votes starting on Monday.

Robredo, on the other hand, did not appear at the venue on the first day of the recount. She only heard  Mass with supporters earlier in the day.

The recount would be conducted daily from Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. by 40 revision teams each composed of three members—a head from the PET and one representative each from the camps of Marcos and Robredo.

Under the PET rules, revision of votes would cover verify the physical count of ballots, recount votes of parties, recording objections and claims, and marking of the contested ballots.

Earlier, both camps agreed to withdraw all the motions they had filed before PET to be able to proceed with the recount.

Marcos filed the protest on June 29, 2016, claiming that the camp of Robredo cheated in the automated polls in the May 2016 national polls.

Vice President Leni Robredo speaks before supporters during a multi-sectoral Mass  Monday at the St. Scholastica’s College in Manila. Lino Santos

In his protest, Marcos contested the results in a total of 132,446 precincts in 39,221 clustered precincts covering 27 provinces and cities. He sought a recount in Camarines Sur, Iloilo and Negros Oriental covering a total of 5,418 clustered precincts.

Robredo filed her answer in August 2016 and filed a counter-protest, questioning the results in more than 30,000 polling precincts in several provinces where Marcos won.

She also sought the dismissal of the protest for lack of merit and jurisdiction of PET.

Robredo won the vice presidential race in the May 2016 polls with 14,418,817 votes or 263,473 more than Marcos’ 14,155,344 votes.

Robredo urged her supporters to stay steadfast amid adversity and assured them that the recount would affirm her victory.

Robredo supporters flocked to the Comelec main office after the Mass, which Robredo said was to seek “strength, guidance and wisdom.”

“Now we see, this is the time of fear—fear of what is going to happen next—[but] just have faith. Let us just do what must be done,” she said.

Macalintal said the recount would only validate the Vice President’s victory over Marcos and dismiss Marcos’ allegations that he was cheated.

“This is a sure win, and in two months’ time, we will know the result,” he said. 

The Palace welcomed the start of the recount, saying it would settle the longstanding issue between Marcos and Robredo.

“Malacañang welcomes the recount so that the long-festering dispute will be settled,” Guevarra said in a mix of Filipino and English.

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