Compostela canvassing moved

CEBU, Philippines - The canvassing of the questioned election returns of the 2010 elections in the Municipality of Compostela, Cebu is further moved on March 5 following the order of the Special Municipal Board of Canvassers (SMBOC) of the Commission on Elections in Manila.

SMBOC chairman Consuelo Diola ordered the postponement of yesterday’s scheduled canvassing after they failed to extract copies of the questioned documents from the Election Records and Statistics Department (ERSD) of the Comelec.

The order stated that the ERSD cannot just easily open the compact flash cards because these are being used in the election protest of former Senator Mar Roxas III against Vice President Jejomar Binay and Glenn Anthony Soco against late Cebu vice governor Gregorio Sanchez, Jr.

The SMBOC has invited representatives of the parties involved in the said elections protests to witness the extraction of the documents on Monday.

As long as the extraction is completed, the canvassing will resume.

Diola last Monday said they will compare the results in the extracted documents with that of the ones that were already canvassed.

She said that if these reflect the same results, they will proclaim the winners, but if not there will be some investigation to be conducted.

The SMBOC was able to canvass the questioned election returns last Monday using electronically-generated election returns (ERs) and statement of votes by precincts (SOVP) but failed to proclaim winners.

Of the 15 questioned election returns, clustered precinct 19 shows discrepancies in the tally while result of precinct 26 is unreadable for the position of town council members.

Unofficial results showed that respondent Joel Quiño got 4,415 while petitioner Ritchie Wagas got 3,970 votes.

Wagas’ counsel did not object to the canvassing last Monday but he questioned the procedures.

Another issue Wagas’ lawyer raised was the authenticity of the electronically generated election returns being canvassed when he found out that these came from different sources such as the copies of the majority and minority parties and even the copy for the ballot box.

But Diola said that what they canvassed is considered authenticated documents.

Quiño’s lawyer, Victor Pablo Trinidad, agreed saying that the election returns generated by PCOS machines are an original copy and it can be used in canvassing.

Diola resolved the issue by ordering that copies of the questioned documents be extracted from the ERSD to promote transparency. — (FREEMAN)