Marcos’ camp to file criminal complaint vs Smartmatic official before Comelec

“We don’t want this Venezuelan to get away with it,” Rep. Jonathan Dela Cruz, Marcos’ Campaign Adviser said, noting Garcia was charged earlier for a similar offense in connection with the 2013 elections. (Photo: Bongbong/Facebook)

MANILA—The camp of Vice Presidential candidate Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will be filing a criminal complaint against an official of service provider Smartmatic Philippines for alleged unauthorized change in the script of the transparency server of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) last May 9.

In a statement, Rep. Jonathan Dela Cruz, Marcos’ Campaign Adviser, said the case will be filed on Friday before the Comelec against Smartmatic personnel Marlon Garcia for alleged violation of the Automated Election System (AES) Law, particularly Section 28 of RA 9369 which prohibits acts that include “interfering with, impeding, absconding for purpose of gain, preventing the installation or use of computer counting devices and the processing, storage, generation and transmission of election results, data or information.”

Garcia, a Venezuelan national, was tagged as the one who introduced the script change into the transparency server in violation of the Comelec protocols.

“We don’t want this Venezuelan to get away with it,” he said, noting Garcia was charged earlier for a similar offense in connection with the 2013 elections.

In a related development, lawyer Jose Amor Amorado, head of the BBM Quick Count Center, said they will also request the poll body for additional access to other components of the Automated Election System.

He said the new letter will be filed before the poll body also on Friday, that will seek access to the transmission logs, list of VCMs (vote counting machines), USB devices and BGANs (Broadband Global Area Network) used in the polls, as well as the public key and decryption key to open up the transmission files.

“This will enable us to explain, and we would be able to see, how many were the undervotes, which is critical to the count of the votes for the Vice Presidential position,” Amorado added.

On Wednesday, the Marcos camp has asked the poll body to allow a system audit of the transparency server and central server by their Information Technology experts and programmers.