BAYAN MUNA Partylist Rep. Neri Colmenares today reiterated his call for Comelec to order the manual counting of ballots considering the malfunctioning of many PCOs machines some of which did not function at all and had to be substituted, and ballots being rejected by the machine.
“The people’s constitutional right to suffrage should be the main concern of Comelec. It must do its utmost that all votes are counted and only a manual counting can remedy this situation,” said Rep. Colmenares. “Voters whose ballots were rejected by the PCOS must insist that their votes be recorded and all rejected ballots must be counted by the BEIs and must be canvassed by the Board of Canvassers. Comelec must order the BEIs to count the votes of those rejected by the PCOS. After all, it’s not the fault of the voter but of the machine.“
He said there are news reports where voters are already disenfranchised because of said hitches in the machines, either because of frustration with the delay or because of non-functioning PCOS. He reiterated his call for voters to vote for those who they believe represent the voice of the impoverished majority instead of those from the wealthy politicians who only win through buying their votes.
On another note, Rep. Colmenares asked the Comelec to go after those who conducted vote buying. “Vote buying practically obliterates whatever gains intended by automated elections. Vote buying is a crime committed in front of millions of witnesses all over the country, and Comelec need not resort to its controversial money ban if it is serious in going after vote buying. It is impossible for Comelec to claim that it has no evidence of vote buying because it is there staring on the faces of Comelec officials,” he said.
“After the elections, we should go after Smartmatic who practically committed estafa when it received billions of pesos without informing us that it does not own what it is selling. We should also go after Comelec officials even during the Melo commission who led us into this fraudulent transaction,” ended Rep. Colmenares.