Comelec: Secure 93 ballot boxes in Nueva Ecija

GAPAN CITY, Philippines  – Alarmed over the security of 93 ballot boxes which are the subject of a pending electoral protest filed by a losing mayoral candidate in the May elections, the Commission on Elections has directed the City Board of Canvassers here to safeguard the poll paraphernalia amid the lack of adequate facilities for safekeeping.

The poll body’s second division chaired by Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer issued a two-page order directing Belen Rivera, city election officer and Gloria Padilla, city treasurer, to protect the ballot boxes pending their transfer to Manila.  

The 93 ballot boxes deposited at the city hall here were the subject of an election protest filed against Mayor Christian Tinio by his defeated political rival, Juanita Natividad in last May’s elections.

Ferrer’s division also deferred the transfer until further orders of the ballot boxes from city hall to the Comelec storage area at Port Area for lack of space. The order was signed by division clerk-of-court, lawyer Roseller Abad. 

Tinio of the Unang Sigaw Partido ng Pagbabago, was proclaimed winner by the Comelec CBOC after garnering 31,638 votes to the 25,249 of Natividad of the Bagong Lakas ng Nueva Ecija, or a margin of 6,300 votes.

Natividad filed an election protest on the grounds that votes cast for her were misread, not counted, and there was inaccurate transmission of the results to the CBOC.

She claimed flash cards for 17 of the 93 clustered precincts malfunctioned. While they were replaced with new flash cards, the Board of Election Inspectors proceeded to count and tally the votes without first subjecting them to the required pre-testing.

Worse, she said only the first 1.6 percent of what was electronically counted and tallied was accurately counted because they were pre-tested. The accuracy of the remaining 98.4 percent, she added, was in doubt because the precinct count optical scan machines were not pre-tested in violation of Comelec Resolution 8785.

Natividad said the 17 precincts account for 14,798 votes, enough to alter the results. She said a manual recount of all the ballots would clear suspicions on the results of the elections.

Tinio lamented that the Natividad camp has been spreading false information that the ballot boxes have been ordered transferred to Manila.

He said the Comelec’s administrative services department has issued a certification on Sept. 8 that there is no available space at the poll body’s storage area, thus, the transfer of the ballot boxes was deferred.  

Election lawyer Romulo Macalintal, Tinio’s counsel, told The STAR by phone that the transfer of the ballot boxes from Gapan to Manila has no bearing on the results. “There is nothing to worry about. Whether it’s in Gapan or Manila, we are confident the results will be the same,” he said.

Macalintal dismissed Natividad’s complaint that the accuracy of the votes electrically counted and tallied was in doubt due to lack of pre-testing, saying this should have been raised during the canvassing, not after the results had been determined. He said the BEIs were authorized by the Comelec to resolve the technical defects in connection with the flash cards.