Thursday, May 17, 2007 Namfrel folks admit glitch messes count By Lizanilla J. Amarga
A COMPUTER glitch and some human error messed up the Namfrel-Cagayan de Oro-Misamis Oriental Operation Quick Count that covers the canvassing of votes as initiated at the Xavier University Gym this city.
Around 70 percent or 1,070 election returns (ERs) of the 1,131 expected ERs from 80 towns of Cagayan de Oro City have already arrived. Most of the ERs that are expected to arrive are those from the hinterland towns.
Namfrel is assisted by the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting-National-Secretariat for Social Action-Legal Network for Truthful Elections (Namfrel-PPCRV-Nassa-Lente).
In a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Namfrel-PPCRV-Nassa-Lente spokesman Ermin Pimentel admitted that the canvassing of votes based on the ERs hit a snag and that it is their fault.
He said the system that they were using was unable to detect double entries of the ERs in their Operation Quick Count (OQC).
"Double entries resulted to the bloating of the results of the counting, Thus, Namfrel-CDO-MISOR declared that the results posted as of 10 a.m. Wednesday are not final and subject to corrections," he said.
Pimentel explained that the OQC system is locally developed and is designed after the Namfrel National Office system to facilitate the posting of results of the national election that includes the senators and party-lists.
This as well as the tabulation and posting of results of the local election that includes the candidates for congressional down to city or municipal councilors.
Pimentel explained that their Namfrel headquarters in Manila wanted to "interface or align" with that of their Namfrel local program here in the city.
He said the local Namfrel system is not the same with that of the national system. "There was one instruction that was not observed," he said, adding that to interface did not push through.
Pimentel outlined the other factors, which contributed to the problem. This includes the discrepancies coming from the ERs such as the missing and confusing data on the total numbers of voters and number of precincts among others.
He said the "sensitivity of the computers to human error from volunteers also affected the system."
"There were some volunteers that clicked the button to submit the results more than once and they did not know that this would mean entering the same results twice or thrice," he said.
"But this could not be attributed to be entirely the volunteers' fault, as we may have failed to fully orient them on the system plus they may have been already impatient and tired," he added.
Pimentel nevertheless explained that they have already cleaned up the double entries and will be proceeding with the canvassing.
He clarified that the results have not yet in any way reached their Namfrel headquarters in Manila because the latter has so far not acknowledged the canvassing results they have submitted via e-mail.
"It's a blessing in disguise," he said. Pimentel said they have already canvassed around 70 percent or 1,070 ERs of the 1,131 expected election returns (ERs).
There are 482 expected ERs from the first district and 549 expected ERs from the second district of Cagayan de Oro city.
Those ERs that were not turned over yet to Namfrel-PPCRV-Nassa-Lente include those from Dansolihon town that has around 1,749 voters, Baikingon that has 975 voters, Besigan that has 49 voters, Mambuaya that has 806 voters, Bayanga that has 1,139 voters, Tignapolohan with 1,562 voters, Tuburan that has 427 voters and San Simon with 749 voters.
There are also some ERs from the City Central School, North City Central and East City Central that were also not turned over to this citizen's arm.
More Misamis Oriental ERs are still being canvassed while the Camiguin ERs were for the first time being canvassed on the island itself.
