A FOURTH server that the Commission on Elections and Smartmatic kept secret from the public was revealed Tuesday by the camp of losing vice presidential candidate Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who will file an election protest before the June 29 deadline.
Marcos’ political adviser Abakada Rep. Jonathan Dela Cruz said the fourth server was never divulged to the public and was never subjected to a source code review.
Jose Amor Amorado, head of Marcos’ legal team, added that no watchers were allowed near the fourth server.
He said results from the municipal board of canvassing servers, the Comelec server and the transparency server were coursed through the fourth server, also called the queue server.
Amorado said they have already asked the Comelec to preserve and secure any and all servers, as well as other related IT equipment used in the elections.
“Definitely we will file an election protest. The truth has to come out—one way or another,” Amorado said after the preliminary investigation of a complaint filed against Comelec and Smartmatic personnel before the Manila Prosecutor’s Office Tuesday.
Amorado said they would seek a recount of votes in some areas, and the setting aside of election results in areas where there were clear indications of fraud and manipulation.
Dela Cruz said they are filing the election protest because they owe it to those who voted for Marcos and to the entire Filipino people to find out what really happened in the May 2016 elections.
“We believe that we have enough evidence to show that there was massive rigging and manipulation of votes,” he said.
Amorado and Dela Cruz cited that the results of their initial findings indicated that between 9 p.m. and 10:10 p.m. on May 9, the transmitted election results showed that Marcos lost in 1,689 precincts, many of which are considered bailiwicks of the senator, mostly in the provinces of Leyte, Samar, Pangasinan and other areas in Region II.
During the preliminary investigation, Smartmatic asked for 10 more days to file their answer to the complaint filed.
Amorado said the respondents are being charged for violating the Cybercrime Prevention Act.
Named respondents were Smartmatic personnel Marlon Garcia, a Venezuelan national and head of the Technical Support Team; Elie Moreno, an Israeli national and project director; Neil Banigued and Mauricio Herrera both members of the Technical Support Team and Comelec IT experts led by Rouie Peñalba, Nelson Herrera and Frances Mae Gonzalez who are all assigned at the Information Technology Department.
“Our main allegation is that in the night of May 9, 2016 during the time when the transmission was already in progress, they opened the system and introduced the new script without permission from the owner of the system, which is Comelec,” said Amorado.
If found guilty, the accused will be sentenced for six to 12 years in prison.
Earlier, the camp of Marcos said that shortly after the suspicious introduction of the new script the Senator’s lead over his closest rival in the vice presidential race began dropping until he was eventually overtaken.
Dela Cruz on Tuesday also took election lawyer Romulo Macalintal to task for suggesting that Marcos not pursue an election complaint against his client, Vice President-elect Leni Robredo because it would be a “waste of time and money.”
Macalintal added that a protest would take up to three years to settle, by which time Marcos could run again for the Senate.
“This is not about Senator Marcos seeking for another term,” said Dela Cruz. “This is for the Filipino people seeking the truth on what really transpired during the elections, and for the people who voted for him.”
Also on Tuesday, the chief of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting urged the Comelec to look into the evidence of alleged cheating to erase doubts on the credibility of the election process.
PPCRV chairperson Henrietta de Villa said the Comelec must investigate further those protests that have hard and strong evidence to support their claim of cheating.
“For the credibility of the elections, all protest and claims accompanied by evidence should be looked into seriously,” De Villa said in a report posted at the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines website.
She said they were furnished copies of formal complaints and supposed evidence on the alleged poll cheating.
