Comelec eyes more cases vs Isabela town candidate
Comelec chair George Erwin Garcia. —Screengrabbed from Comelec
MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is verifying whether the acts of a vice mayoral candidate in Isabela are part of a “coordinated” attack on the integrity and credibility of the May 12 elections.
“They should not force me. I won’t be able to stop myself from saying who are behind him because this is coordinated,” Comelec chair George Erwin Garcia said of lawyer Jeryll Harold Respicio, who is running for vice mayor of Reina Mercedes, Isabela.
Garcia on Friday led the filing of a complaint against Respicio for violation of Article 154 (Unlawful Use of Means of Publication and Unlawful Utterances) of the Revised Penal Code, in relation to Section 6 of Republic Act No. 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.
The Comelec accused Respicio of posting videos on Facebook claiming that the automated counting machines had backroom programs that could be hacked and the results of the elections manipulated.
Part of bigger plan?
The videos, posted last month, have been taken down by Facebook through the efforts of the Comelec’s Task Force KKK (Katotohanan, Katapatan at Katarungan) sa Halalan and the Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group.
“For the past few days, we’ve been monitoring the coordination of certain persons who are behind things like this,” Garcia said in an interview on radio station dwIZ.
Garcia belied Respicio’s claims, adding that such claims make people believe that “something can be done to manipulate our elections.”
“It appears he’s not reading our guidelines, or what he’s saying seems to be speculations which are intended to condition the minds of the voters,” Garcia said.
“We’re okay with criticisms, we like it, but not if the purpose is not to suggest or advice but to confuse or condition the minds of our countrymen that our [election] systems can be cheated,” Garcia said.
Respicio replied to Garcia, saying the poll body should “speak to me maturely and maybe invite me to your office, and we’ll talk technically about what my concern really is.”
“My intent was to bring up to the concern of the Comelec my worry is that while the voting machine is connected to the internet before and during the printing of ERs. Because if the source code of the voting machine is connected to the internet, it can be hacked,” Respicio insisted.
