By Jonathan Dela Cruz
I was completely taken aback by the claim of Vice President Leni Robredo’s camp that the Commission on Elections, in its voting advisory for the May 2016 elections had actually approved the counting of votes which were only 25 percent shaded. Where did they get this information? And why are they fighting tooth and nail to the point of even filing a motion for the Presidential Electoral Tribunal to reconsider its decision to count only those ballots shaded up to 50 percent.
There can only be one reason: Those 25-percent shaded votes make up a good part of Robredo’s total votes. If not of the entire 14 million-plus she got in 2016, then at least of the votes she got in the areas now being contested in the ongoing electoral protest filed by former Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Considering the slim margin of 243,000 votes she had over Marcos, the potentially invalidated votes in the first three pilot provinces being questioned—Camarines Sur (Robredo’s province), Iloilo (the key province in the concededly pro-Mar Roxas bailiwick of Region 6) and Negros Oriental (supposedly allied to Roxas as a result of the creation of the Negros Island Region in the run-up to the elections) can turn the tide against her.
These three provinces have a voting population of about three million and if we go by the trend in the latest audit of the Camarines Sur count which now stand at 12 percent of votes cast, the invalidated votes can total more than 300,000—enough to overturn her slim margin, and her continuing stay as vice president. No wonder the lady was already talking about whisperings of her ouster from office even before the Supreme Court declared that a quo warranto case can be brought up against impeachable officials!
Call it a kind of back-to-the-future slip of the mind, but it speaks volumes of the state of mind of Robredo and her circle of advisers.
There is nothing in the voting advisories for the 2016 elections as issued and publicly released by the Comelec en banc which supports the Robredo assertion. The last such advisory was Comelec Resolution 10088 dated April 12, 2016 entitled “ Amending Certain Provisions of Resolution No. 10057 dated February 11, 2016 or otherwise known as the General Instructions for the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) on the Testing and Sealing of Vote Counting Machines (VCMs) and Voting, Counting and Transmission of Election Results in Connection with the 09 May 2016 National and Local Elections.”
Nothing on record was issued by the en banc after April 12, 2016 to guide voters and the BEIs in the conduct of the elections. Unless the Robredo camp can come out with a later Comelec issuance, the PET should already dismiss the MR and proceed with the examination of the ballots in the three pilot provinces.
Comelec Resolution 10088 dated is clear: voters should fully—not partially—hade the voting circle. In fact, not even the PET-approved 50 percent shading is provided for which is why the PET had earlier opined that by doing so they were already bending backwards for the parties in protest. The pertinent provision of the amended Comelec advisory reads in part:
“Section 6. Section 40 of Resolution No. 10057 is hereby amended to read as follows:
Section 40. Manner of Voting
a. The Voter shall:
1. Using the ballot security folder and marking pen provided by the Commission, accomplish the ballot by fully shading the circle beside the names of the candidate and the organization participating in the party-list system of representation…”
That’s it. It’s that simple. It needs no further explanation or interpretation. Fully shaded is fully shaded. If the Robredo camp insists with its contention —which should be dismissed outright —then they and their friends from the Comelec and Smartmatic should be prepared to explain themselves about the breach of two other items in the same Section 6 which, again, were observed and reported by the revisors in the ongoing protest.
First, the opening of the Vote Counting Machines to be used in the polls.
Section 3 of Resolution 10088 which amends Section 37 of the earlier Resolution 10057 mandates that “…The VCMs shall be opened on May 9, 2016 not earlier than 5 o’clock in the morning and in the presence of watchers, if any..”
The reports of the revisor teams show that votes purportedly coming from a number of VCMs were being transmitted a day earlier. There were also reports of VCMs opened beyond the voting time and transmitting after the polls were already closed and counting was already done.
Second, the gangs which perpetrated the questionable acts should also be able to explain why in many recincts in Camarines Sur, the first province to be officially vetted, the Voter Receipt Receptacles which contains the “minutes of the voting,” as it were, including the list of those who voted and how they voted, among others, the ballot boxes did not contain the said receptacles.
Indeed, the opening of the ballot boxes in the first protested province contains a heavy dose of information and evidence potentially damaging to Vice President Robredo. Which is why the PET should proceed with the opening of the boxes with all deliberate speed and determine the breaches committed in the service of the powers-that-be.
Only then can the truth about the 2016 elections, at least for the vice presidency, can finally be put to rest.
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We join the family and friends of the late Senator Edgardo J. Angara and architect Toti Villalon in prayers for the eternal repose of their souls. They have served the country well and their deeds will be remembered long after they have been laid to rest.