PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte's suggestion to terminate the agreement between the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Venezuelan-based technology solutions firm Smartmatic does not imply that there were irregularities in the 2019 midterm elections, Malacañang said on Friday, May 31, 2019.
Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo made the clarification after Duterte urged the Comelec to get rid of Smartmatic and find a new contract that is "free of fraud."
"The President’s latest remarks on Smartmatic does not mean that the just concluded elections is not honest nor credible. It is," Panelo said in a statement.
"The President’s remarks is a response to some concerns raised by both the opposition, the administration supporters as well as civic groups relative to the previous and present elections on certain technical glitches that precipitate questions on the technological competence of Smartmatic," he added.
But Panelo also urged the Comelec to heed the President's advice.
"The President wants that the future elections will not be subjected to the same aforementioned concerns," he said.
"The Comelec should take seriously the suggestion of the President, for after all it should be the first one that should be fiercely protective of its image being the constitutional body mandated to safeguard the sanctity of the ballots," he added.
In a meeting with the Filipino community in Japan, Duterte called on the Comelec to stop the use of Smartmatic's vote counting machines (VCMs) after technical glitches were experienced during the conduct of this year's elections.
The VCMs provided by Smartmatic were the same ones used in the 2016 national elections, the year when Duterte was elected to the presidency.
Smartmatic was also the supplier of the thousands of precinct count optical scan (PCOS) counting machines used during the 2010 and 2013 elections.
Panelo noted that even though Duterte got elected as president, the same issues on VCM were also encountered in the 2016 elections.
"In the 2016 presidential elections, it was bruited about that three million votes were taken away from the then candidate Duterte," he said.
"The opposition candidates have been heard to complain that they could have gotten more votes in the last elections, not necessarily enough to win the senate seats, but not as low as the official turn out. Comelec said about two million votes were invalidated because of overvotes," he added.
Duterte only wants to make future elections free from any issues, as he is "not comfortable with these allegations that produce a whiff of fraud or delay in the announcing of the election results," Panelo stressed.
Earlier Friday, Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said there should be legal basis to ban Smartmatic from participating in future public biddings for election-related activities. (SunStar Philippines)