The Commission on Elections (Comelec) assured on Thursday, May 12, that it will continue to ensure that elections in the country remain “credible, honest, accurate and clean.”
Comelec Acting Spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco made the assurance during Thursday’s press briefing after President Duterte stated he observed no incidents of cheating during this year’s elections.
“We really are grateful to the President of the Republic for saying that,” Laudiangco said.
“Kasi all the time naman po from the very beginning, that is the goal of the Comelec to ensure that the election is credible, honest, accurate and clean,” he declared.
Though he observed no cheating, Duterte still called on the Comelec to investigate as to why hundreds of vote counting machines (VCMs) broke down during election day to douse public doubts.
“We welcome, in fact, we’re already starting it - the VCM and the goal for that is to improve on the 2025 elections po,” Laudiangco said.
Aside from this, the lawyer said the investigation is also meant to show the transparency of the Comelec.
“Gusto po naming malaman ninyo these are purely technical, wala pong halong anomaliya (We want to let the public know that the problems were technical and that there were no anomalies),” the spokesperson stated.
“Nagkataon lang po na nagkaroon ng (It just so happens that there were) technical issues that need to be addressed which were were duly incorporated in our contingency measures,” he added.
From the initial investigation the poll body conducted, Laudiangco said that it was found that there were 915 VCMs that experienced technical problems.
“It accounts only as 0.5 or 0.8 percent of the total 106,174 VCMs,” he noted.
At the moment, Laudiangco said the the COMELEC is now in the technical aspect of the investigation to determine what caused the VCMs to break down.
With the investigation, Laudiangco said the poll body hopes “i-improve ‘yung technology para, ‘pag nag-set kami ng panibagong terms of reference hopefully sa 2025 bagong makina (to improve the technology so that, once we set the new terms of reference hopefully for the new machines in 2025), we will be able to improve on this given the lessons on VCM issues natin ngayon.”