Who should be hanged?

MANILA, Philippines - Who should go to the gallows first: election saboteurs or former energy chief Angelo Reyes?

There were fireworks yesterday at the Commission on Elections (Comelec) after an irate Reyes attended a press briefing and railed that those responsible for the glitches in the automated election machines during test runs last Monday must be hanged.

But an annoyed Makati Rep. Teodoro “Teddy Boy” Locsin, of the joint congressional oversight committee on poll automation, fired back, saying those responsible for the glitches in the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines should be hanged alongside the people responsible for the country’s power crisis.

Reyes demanded an explanation from the Comelec on why the PCOS machines had failed to count the votes for his son Rep. Jett Reyes who is seeking re-election in Taguig.

“I am here as private citizen. I denounce in the strongest possible sense the anomaly that has been documented. This is not acceptable. We are playing with fire here. We are bringing this country to the edge. Something has to be responsible for this. We demand to the Comelec an exhaustive investigation,” Reyes boomed.

The former energy secretary suddenly butted in while the Comelec and Smartmatic-Total Information Management Corp. (TIM) were explaining to reporters the glitches in the PCOS machines.

Reyes said he wanted “heads to roll” for the Comelec’s inability to address the issues over the PCOS machines.

According to Reyes, the Comelec should look into the incident since it could lead to what he called “automated cheating.”

“This will have to be done immediately,” Reyes shouted. “We have to find the people responsible for this debacle... They must be hanged.”

Locsin said Reyes, who used to head the Department of Energy before resigning from the Cabinet to become a nominee of the party-list group 1-Utak supposedly to represent the transport sector, also deserved the hangman’s noose.

Reyes hit back at Locsin by blaming “legislators for making it hard for us to do our jobs.”

During the press conference, Smartmatic officials led by Cesar Flores explained the problem was not with the PCOS machines but on the configuration of the compact flash memory cards inside.

The names of the local candidates are printed on the official ballots with a single space in between rows. But during the testing, Flores said the machines did not recognize the names supposedly printed on the third row of the ballot.

Smartmatic-TIM said it would replace all the memory cards in the PCOS machines to address the situation.