Comelec questions Namfrel statement

May 17, 2019

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Friday questioned National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) statement seeking for an explanation on their “transmission router”.

“It seems that people are forgetting things,”Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said in a press briefing.

Jimenez said the issue has reached the commissioners.

“They claimed not to have been on the discussions. Kind of surprising because we have minutes and the minutes very clearly show that Namfrel was present at the meeting where this was discussed,” he said.

Jimenez added they will release the minutes of the meeting to the public at a “proper time” as they are preparing the chronology of the events.

“So that we will now exactly when decisions were made, when decisions were approved and when decisions were implemented. And what happened in between,” said Jimenez.

The Comelec spokesperson said Namfrel was present where one of the most important things discussed was the transmission log.

Jimenez then cited the conditions of using a transmission router.

“Number one, the data must be forwarded as soon as possible and should not be retain for more than an hour. Second, upon transmission the data must be deleted upon successful transmission. Third, the use of transmission router must be subject to local source code review and international certification entity review, and that there must be a certification from NTC after the source review. Fourth, that the data should not be remotely accessible,” he said.

He added those are the conditions the Comelec set to make sure the use of transmission router was secured.

“So, it was always the idea for the transmission router to just be a traffic cop. It was never a facility to store data not like what people are trying to say now,” said Jimenez.

“This was voted on… the adoption of the solution was actually voted on and Namfrel was actually part of the voting. The result of the voting was unanimous so again we don’t know where they are coming from but where we are coming from, we have receipts,” he added.

On Thursday, Comelec explained that the use of transmission router or “meet me room” is not against the Omnibus Election Code as claimed by other poll watchdog.

In a statement released earlier, Namfrel calls on Comelec to fully disclose and explain the “transmission router” or the “meet-me-room” network set up, how it operates, and who are behind its operations.

This is alongside their other request asking the commission to explain what happened last May 13 election.

Jimenez said they started to work on the manifestations sent to them which include the release of the server logs.

“PPCRV has been given the first look so any future request will have to be process through PPCRV but the server logs have already been released,” he said.

Jimenez said there is no need to characterize the technical glitch happened hours after unofficial count was released in the transparency server.

“I think it would be unfair to the process, it could be unfair who was there, to everyone who is saying now that there is nothing wrong, there is nothing mysterious going on,” he said.

“It was not a seven-hour delay because when the problem was noticed around 6pm, I was on-air at around 11 so I don’t think that four hours to understand the situation and understand what the fix was, was unreasonable under the circumstances especially considering that during those hours the whole process is not entirely in the dark because they were media representative at the transparency server where this whole thing was unfolded,” he explained.

He said “there was never a delay... in number one, in transmission data, second in the availability of data to be observed and witnessed.”

“Third for the whole period, everything that was going on in the counting was very pliable, and still very pliable and number four, the logs that cover that period are now available,” said Jimenez.

Poll watchers and as well as the public is now questioning the credibility of the automated votes despite Comelec’s continuous assurance that the FTP application they used and experienced “java error” will not affect the election results.

And due to the problem they faced with this application, Jimenez said it still needs some work.

“Everything that went wrong in this election will have to be rethought, will have to be redesign if necessary, will have to be retooled,” he said.

“Now is not the time to shoot from the hip. Now is the time for calculated measure responses that are responsive to the problem rather than just fanning speculations,” he said. Ella Dionisio/DMS