ELECTION watchdogs on Thursday called for sweeping changes in the country's Automated Election System (AES) law.
Lawyer Glenn Chong, a former member of the House of Representatives, said the Philippine Constitution Association has started drafting the bill since March 2017 to introduce revisions to the current AES law.
"This is not an amendment of the current AES law. Its a complete overhaul or revision of most provisions. The most important here is we give the proposed law stricter provisions on compliance of the law by Comelec, longer imprisonment penalties and higher fines for violations of the law, and shifts the burden of proof to the violators in cases of violations of the law," said Chong during the Philconsa meeting in Makati City.
Chong said Rodolfo Reyes, Philconsa vice president for National Capital Region, former election commissioner Gus Lagman, Namfrel election observer and Philippine National IT standards Foundation president Ma. Corazon Akol and other IT experts, help in writing the bill.
He said the group wants to revise most provisions of the Republic Act 9369, the act amending the Republic Act 8436, the law which authorized the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to use the AES.
Chong said the bill they will propose have stricter penalties for the Comelec and violators of the law.
"In other words, we give the proposed law more power against violators because the current law is really inutile," he added.
Akol, who was also present at the event, said the bill would be sponsored by Kabayan party-list Representative Harry Roque and Senator Richard Gordon.
She explained that the group specifically wanted to change the current AES to a hybrid system in which the vote counting is manual while the transmission is automated.
She explained that this could help candidates to easily have the access to the evidence, like the ballots, had they been cheated.
"How will you file a case when they hold data and everything to file a protest? Hindi kagaya sa manual na at every point pwede mong kuwestyunin, dito pagpunta sa blackbox wala ka na," Akol said.
The manual system would also serve as the backup had the automated elections failed, she said.
Akol said the group would finish the draft before President Rodrigo Duterte's first State of the Nation Address on July 24.
Former Philconsa president and Associate Justice Manuel Lazaro and the Philconsa members are all advocate for the manual voting and automated transmission of votes.
'68 election cases filed'
Chong meanwhile said the total number of poll protests now pending before different levels had reached 68.
In the national level there are two: the protest filed by former senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. against Vice President Maria Leonor "Leni" Robredo now pending before the Supreme Court acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal and the protest filed by loosing senatorial candidate Francis Tolentino against Senator Leila de Lima pending before the Senate Electoral Tribunal.
There are 16 poll protest filed in the Congress, 10 provincial protests and 32 city protests to be resolved by the Comelec and eight municipal protests to be decided by the Regional Trial Courts.
These pending protests according to Chong have raised more doubts on the credibility of the last automated polls.
He said that the automated system aims to minimize incidents of election protests but the Comelec failed to do so as the cases related to the conduct of elections had increased.
Chong also said that the Comelec should be held liable for the data breach in the Comelec website, the Smartmatic's tweaking of the hashcode and for its failure to substantially comply with the SC's ruling to print vote receipts as an effective way to detect or uncover fraud committed.
It can be recalled that the Comelec did printed vote receipts, upon the SC's order but removed the time, date, hashcode and precinct identification, therefore making it useless, said Chong.
Chong said they will file a case against the Comelec for its failure to do its duty to protect the sanctity of the ballots and for its negligence.
"We will definitely file charges against the Comelec and Smartmatic. That is as sure as the sun rises every morning. We are waiting for the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee hearings to start when Congress resumes session because we will present more damning evidence of manipulation of the elections at the hearings. Then we take our legal actions from there," Chong said. (VoxPop Philippines)
