{"id":155570,"date":"2018-03-07T21:53:35","date_gmt":"2018-03-08T02:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=155570"},"modified":"2018-03-07T21:53:35","modified_gmt":"2018-03-08T02:53:35","slug":"comelec-to-look-into-flaws-of-2016-polls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/03\/07\/comelec-to-look-into-flaws-of-2016-polls\/","title":{"rendered":"Comelec to look into ‘flaws’ of 2016 polls"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"PNA<\/a>
PNA Photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong> \u2014\u00a0 The Commission on Elections (Comelec) would look into the allegations of irregularities in the May 2016 national and local elections bared by Senator Vicente Sotto III, its spokesperson said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Commission understands the grave importance of this matter and will, itself, strive to determine the veracity of these claims,\u201d said James Jimenez.<\/p>\n

He said they would coordinate with the office of the senator as they want to evaluate the documents.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, as far as the Comelec is concerned, the best course of action right now is to reach out to the Senator and to ask him to show us what he has. And then we evaluate it,\u201d Jimenez said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we are going to evaluate together then let\u2019s evaluate it together. The point is to see what was done. What are the consequences of the act that was being alleged in this case,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, election watchdog groups want \u201can independent group\u201d to investigate Sotto\u2019s allegations.<\/p>\n

National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) secretary general Eric Alvia noted that competent authorities in the proper forum or venue must conduct the probe.<\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently, election protest cases lodged at various electoral tribunals and the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on the Automated Elections System convening will settle this issue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For Kontra Daya, they want the poll body and an independent panel of experts to examine Sotto\u2019s allegations of fraud in the last national polls.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that Sotto has said his piece, it is now imperative for him to share whatever information he has to the Comelec and concerned election monitoring groups,\u201d the group said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the very start, we in Kontra Daya have stressed the vulnerability of the automated election system. We have also denounced the lack of transparency, not to mention the foreign intervention to our national and local polls with the awarding of the contract to Smartmatic,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Sotto said results of the May 2016 national elections may have been \u201caltered\u201d due to alleged irregularities, such as the transmission of votes happening a day before the actual counting of ballots.<\/p>\n

The senator added that his \u201cimpeccably reliable source\u201d also believes that the election servers were also accessed by a foreign entity \u201cbefore, during, and after\u201d the polls.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the camp of former Senator Bongbong Marcos lauded the action taken by Sotto for exposing the supposed poll irregularities.<\/p>\n

\u201cSenator Bongbong Marcos is happy that he is no longer a voice in the wilderness. He noted that other patriotic leaders and stakeholders have seen the extent of the conspiracy, interference and manipulation of the election results by Smartmatic and have begun to speak out,\u201d Marcos’ spokesperson, lawyer Vic Rodriguez, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe congratulate Senator Tito Sotto for bringing the election anomalies to the attention of the public. Informed observers have wondered why \u2014 despite all the evidence of massive cheating committed by Smartmatic, the Comelec still awarded them the contract to do the same thing all over again in the forthcoming 2019 elections. We have never understood Comelec\u2019s insistence in again awarding Smartmatic despite the multitude transgressions attributed to it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez noted that Sotto’s allegations should be investigated and answered by the poll body and the service-provider in the May 2016 polls.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the issues raised by Senator Sotto need to be investigated and all the questions he asked need to be answered by both Smartmatic and the Comelec,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2014\u00a0 The Commission on Elections (Comelec) would look into the allegations of irregularities in the May 2016 national and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":155571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[4844,3716,4951],"class_list":["post-155570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ph","tag-2016-polls","tag-comelec","tag-tito-sotto","mauthors-ferdinand-patinio","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}