CEBU City Mayor Tomas Osmeña is calling for the postponement of the elections after glitches were reported during the testing of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines in Manila last Monday.
In a news conference yesterday, Osmeña said it is not yet the right time for the country to conduct a nationwide synchronized automated election.
"If it does not work while testing, so in that case when they tested it and the results are not the same, they should postpone the elections and go back to manual," said Osmeña.
During the testing, some PCOS machines gave different results from the manual count done by the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI).
In Metro Manila, a machine failed to register even a single vote for local candidates.
Smartmatic-TIM, the supplier of the PCOS machines, said a wrong configuration in the compact flash (CF) cards caused the failure of the PCOS machines.
But the Provincial Election Office suspended the deployment of PCOS machines, which is supposed to end tomorrow, and the conduct of the final testing and sealing on May 7.
Provincial Election Supervisor Lionel Castillano said the activities are suspended until the configuration for local positions will be corrected.
Glitches
The poll body issued the directive yesterday or after more than 200 PCOS machines had already been deployed in different areas in Cebu Province, Castillano said.
The Comelec directive stated "the purpose of the final testing and sealing of the PCOS is to determine whether or not the automated election system is working properly, securely and accurately."
They admitted the conduct of the final testing and sealing last Monday in some areas revealed glitches in the configuration for local positions.
He said the flashcards, which are considered the storage devices of the PCOS machines, encountered a problem.
"In order to facilitate the said corrections, the PCOS should stay in the hubs instead of being deployed to the different polling centers," the one-page order stated.
However, Castillano said their field test in the City of Naga, Cebu and the manual count had the same results even for the provincial officials.
Despite the problem, Castillano said they will strive hard to continue with the elections.
"We will strive hard, that is our commitment," he said, adding that as long as there are ballots, the conduct of the elections is possible.
"That's the beauty of the system. It is paper-based. Comelec is still prepared for the conduct of manual elections, just in case," Castillano added.
Meanwhile, Marilou Chiongbian, executive director of poll watchdog Cebu-Citizens' Involvement and Maturation in People's Empowerment (C-Cimpel), said yesterday they will deploy more than 7,500 poll watchers to witness the testing and sealing of the PCOS machines in 365 polling precincts across Cebu.
However, she would prefer if Comelec will allow the manual counting of votes.
Parallel
Department of Education 7 Director Recaredo Borgonia said while only a few teachers will be deployed to serve as BEIs, the department is prepared to send back-up BEI teams to do the manual counting of votes if the need arises.
Political parties are concerned.
One Cebu party spokesperson Rory Jon Sepulveda said their group is concerned with the suspension of the deployment of the PCOS machines but they still trust and have confidence in the officials mandated to do the task.
But they will still push for a parallel manual count.
Lawyer Joselito Ramon Castillo, legal spokesman of Liberal Party's (LP) gubernatorial bet Hilario "Junjun" Davide III, said as a proactive plan, they have formed a legal team to guard the PCOS machines in the whole province.
In Cebu City, some police personnel were also deployed starting Monday to secure PCOS machines in different polling places in Cebu City.
Cebu City Police Office Director Patrocinio Comendador Jr. said the personnel came from the police stations in Parian, Mabolo, Pardo, Taboan, Mambaling and Punta Princesa.
Until yesterday, Comendador said the city police force did not monitor any reported presence of political or armed groups.
There is also no area in the city that has been recommended as an election area of concern.
Comendador said the security plan for Monday's polls are in place.
The full deployment of all the 878 police officers for the May 10 polls will be done on Friday.
He said emergency lights will be set up in all the 73 polling centers in case brownouts will happen.
The operations section of the CCPO serves as the nerve center where centralized instruction for all concerned police officers will be disseminated. (PDF/RSA/JKV/JTG)