Signal jammers will not affect election results

CEBU, Philippines - With concerns being raised on the possible use of signal jammers for Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines this coming May 13 elections, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) - 7 assured that votes and results will be kept safe and credible.

Comelec-7 Director Temie Lambino did not deny that signal jammers may be used as reported earlier in national news after Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes, Department of Interior and Local Government and the National Telecommunications company posed a warning to the public to be cautious of signal jammers.

Lambino said they will be closely monitoring such activities as well in the region but even with its presence, Lambino said signal jammers can only do so much.

Signal jammers, Lambino explained, could only delay the transmission of results from the city or municipal areas to the provincial or national commission.

But he said signal jammers can never change the transmitted information thus maintaining the credibility of the results which can be verified through election returns.

Lambino reiterated that in case signals are jammed when transmitting results from the canvassing consolidated systems of the PCOS machine, they still have the option to use the Broadband Global Area Network satellite.

The last resort in sending results if the first two options would fail would be to manually transport the compact flash cards to a nearby precinct that can transmit, or to the provincial election board who will then send it to the national election board. Manually transporting the CF cards would need security escorts, though, as well as watchers of candidates.

Comelec Chairman Brillantes earlier said that signal jammers are minor concerns for the commission since it does not affect the accuracy of the votes and because they have other options to transmit results when the process is delayed.

Meanwhile, Lambino said that they have not filed disqualification cases against candidates they have earlier sent notices to remove illegally posted campaign paraphernalia.

This was after candidates immediately removed the said campaign posters after receipt of the notice from the Comelec.

Lambino said that they were pleased that the candidates immediately obliged with the notice and did not wait to take advantage of the three-day period for them to remove posters or else will be facing disqualification cases.

A number of candidates for various positions, areas and parties were sent notices by the Comelec recently with the help of complaints from private citizens and groups that expressed their support to Comelec to go after candidates who have illegally posted campaign materials.  (FREEMAN)