The government's pandemic task force has approved the request of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to hold nationwide mock election activities on December 29, 2021, Malacañang said.
In his press briefing on Friday, December 10, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said there was no reason for the Inter-agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases to reject the said request.
The acting Palace spokesman said this will help ensure the safe conduct of the upcoming presidential elections on May 9, 2022.
"In order to ensure the safe and effective conduct of the 2022 National and Local Elections, the IATF poses no objection to the request of the Commission on Elections to conduct nationwide mock election exercises on December 29, 2021," he said.
Last month, Comelec Deputy Executive Director for Operations Teofisto Elnas Jr. said that the body will be holding an "end-to-end demonstration" of the whole process.
"We will test on how accurate, true, and secure the process,” he said in an online forum conducted by election watchdog group National Citizens for Free Elections (Namfrel).
Elnas added the results will be counted, transmitted, and received in different destinations.
"This is where we would be able to test our VCMs (vote-counting machines), from the start, opening until voting, consolidation of results, then printing of election returns and also the printing of the voting receipts," he said.
On December 8, the Comelec received the complete software that will be used to automate the 2022 elections. The thumb drives were stored in a vault of the Comelec's Information Technology Department.
The thumb drives will be turned over to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) as mandated by the Poll Automation Law. Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said this is to ensure the integrity of the software.
"This deposit of the source code in escrow of BSP is to ensure there is a trusted copy of the final trusted build, and will not be open to tampering or any possible alteration of anyone," he said during the turnover of the final software to the Comelec.