Comelec says delaying proclamation due to alleged fraud not ”best thing”

May 16, 2019

The Commission on Elections ( Comelec) said delaying proclamation of winners in the 2019 midterm polls due to alleged fraud is not the “best thing” to do.

“My personal opinion (on the issue) is it is hard for now because all the third party looking onto the problem is saying there is no problem,” Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said in a radio interview Thursday.

“To halt the proclamation on the basis of speculation, I cannot say if that would be the best thing to do,” he added.

On Wednesday, an official of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) called for the proclamation of winning senatorial candidates be suspended temporarily due to controversies.

CBCP - National Secretariat for Social Action (NASSA) Executive Secretary Fr. Edwin Gariguez said: "We demand for an independent and impartial investigation of the alleged fraud and manipulation of automated canvassing by the Comelec and Smartmatic."

Jimenez said delaying the proclamation of a winning candidate because of fraud speculation means not proclaiming anyone.

“If an allegation of fraud was enough to suspend a proclamation, then there would never be any proclamation because If I am losing, all I have to do is to allege fraud,” he said.

He reiterated that though there are glitches in their system, it will not really affect the integrity of the results.

During the review of local source code, Jimenez said all the candidates' representative felt “confident” that the system is secured.

He said the release of the technical report that was announced by Commissioner Marlon Casquejo is now being processed.

“We only need (to know) the process and what are the requirements to have and release (the report)… hopefully within this week,” said Jimenez.

He said as Comelec transmitted 98 percent of election returns to the transparency server and their canvassing is 53 percent complete.

“We expect it to be faster and we only see minimal problems in the field,” he said. Ella Dionisio/DMS