More puzzling questions for the Comelec!

We attended the 2010 Annual Stockholders meeting of the Aboitiz Equities Ventures (AEV) at the Marriott Hotel where its President and Chief Executive Officer Mr. Erramon Aboitiz said that its businesses are well positioned to capitalize on opportunities that have risen from a recovering global economy. That AEV 2009 consolidated revenues rose by 29% over P46 billion as compared to the year 2008 is mute testimony that the global downturn hasn’t affect big businesses in the Philippines, unlike those of the US.

AboitizPower was the leading company that had an income of P4.3 billion which is 30% higher than the previous year due to the expansion of its capacity from 578 MW at the end of 2008 to a whooping 1,745 MW in 2009. Its banking business has increased by 103% year on year and AEV has approved a proposal to increase its ownership in City Savings Bank (CSB). Even the transport group that posted a poor performance the previous year came up with an income contribution of P387 million or a 375% increase.

If AEV and AP can come up with remarkable revenues in a year that even the most robust Western companies were wallowing on financial problems, then there must be something that AEV officials are doing right. We, Cebuano are proud of their success, as it also means an increase in their contributions to their corporate social responsibility (CSR). All we can add is kudos to AEV and AP and (pardon the pun) more power!

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It seems that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has remained mum regarding the queries we made yesterday on why there is not a single spoiled ballot that the Comelec recorded in the entire island of Cebu, including Cebu City. Let me add more puzzling questions for the Comelec to answer in case they do find answers to our questions. First, for the Province of Cebu, they reported that total number of Cities/Municipalities in Cebu is 51 on the certificate of canvass for gubernatorial and vice-gubernatorial candidates with a total of 1,732.972 million registered voters. So how come when I looked into the Provincial/District Certificate of Canvass for the Presidential and Vice-Presidential race, there are now 52 municipalities and the total number of registered voters has also risen to 1,900,057. Again, why is there suddenly a different figure for the Provincial candidates and another figure for the Presidential race? Again we are using the Comelec’s own records and we are begging the Comelec for answers.

Using the total number of voters who actually voted for the President in Cebu Province, the figure is 1,500,628. If you added the number of votes for all those who run for President, there are 88,778 voters who did not vote for any President, while the number who did not vote for a Vice-President is 151,954. Comelec must give a credible explanation; otherwise, people will question the credibility of this election. 

Even stranger are the votes for Jun Davide which is 543, 246, while Greg Sanchez got 543,924. Greg only beat his governor with a mere 678 votes. But when I asked people who didn’t know the figures as to the difference between Davide and Greg, their answer would be, Greg would certainly have a huge margin compared to Davide because the latter isn’t known in the Province of Cebu. Hence their almost duplicate figures tell me that something is fishy here. As we said, ezzz a puzzlement!

Meanwhile, Namfrel has already pointed out that there are some 5 million disenfranchised voters, not to mention that the PCOS machines rejected many ballots for various reasons. But how come we don’t have a Comelec report on spoiled ballots?

Let me point out one more issue of equal importance. Last Aug.17, 2009 I interviewed Smartmatic officials on my talkshow Straight from the Sky with Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez, Arquimedes Machado and Heider Garcia of Smartmatic. That early, when they asked me to insert my ballot and pushed the button, a paper tape appeared to record my vote. I was amazed that finally we could trace our precincts and keep a record of our votes. But then, last May 10, we only got a digital greeting congratulating us for voting.

Comelec apparently took this feature out. But it is the law according to R.A. no.9369 amended by R.A.8436 where on section 7 it states, on (d) “System integrity which ensures physical stability and functioning of the vote recording and counting process and on (E) Provision for voter verified paper audit trail.” Now why was this feature no longer there when it is in fact part of the law for a voter to have a paper audit trail? Someone in the Comelec violated the Election Law and someone ought to answer for removing this feature that is specifically pointed out in the law.