MANILA – Vice presidential bet Senator Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. on Wednesday formally asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for an audit of its Transparency Server and Central Server, so as to clear once and for all the air of doubt in connection with the unauthorized alteration in the script of the server several hours after the voting process has ended on May 9.
In a three-page letter addressed to Comelec Chairman Juan Andres Bautista, which was personally delivered by Atty. Jose Amor Amorado, head of senator’s Quick-Count center, the vice presidential candidate is requesting that his team of Information Technology (IT) experts and programmers be allowed to conduct an audit of the said servers.
“I am formally requesting that this honorable Commission permit my team of IT experts and programmers, within three (3) days from receipt hereof, to conduct an audit of the Transparency Server and the Central Server, with the close supervision of this Commission and its technical personnel,” said Marcos.
He also noted that the alteration done removed the only security feature of the data, causing hash codes to change, thus, there is no assurance the data was not altered in other occasions.
“If a single person can introduce “cosmetic changes”, how can the public be assured the same person or other persons did not introduce substantial changes to the script or that the data was not affected as a result,” Marcos added.
He also pointed out that the supposed discrepancy where “ñ” was displaying “?” occurred only in the transparency server and not in the vote counting machines (VCM), the Consolidation and Canvassing System (CCS), the election returns (ER), and the ballots when they are part of the same system.
“Could it be that the Transparency Server was loaded with an entirely different program that was not presented to the political parties and candidates?” he said.
Amorado is convinced that the audit will settle the issue on whether the script change was indeed merely cosmetic or if it was more than that.
On the other hand, Abakada party list Rep. Jonathan Dela Cruz, Campaign Adviser of Marcos, clarified that the Senator’s camp is not accusing anybody of cheating and that they are only after the truth as well as the integrity and credibility of the results of the May 9 elections.
“We are only after the truth and if other parties, such as Malacanang, the camp of Rep. Leni Robredo and her IT experts are interested in this audit they are welcome to take part in this too,” he added.