NP opposes poll postponement

Source: globalinquirer.net

Iloilo City—Nacionalista Party (NP) candidates on Tuesday raised concerns over the defects in the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines but slammed calls for the postponement of the elections.
Vice presidential candidate Sen. Loren Legarda said the Commission on Elections (Comelec) should investigate why the defects were undetected before the machines were shipped to polling centers.

“In case the machines misread the ballots, is this because of machine defects or were the machines pre-programmed?” Legarda said in an interview on the sidelines of an NP rally at the Iloilo Sports Complex Tuesday evening.

Legarda said the manual counting of ballots could be implemented in areas where the machines are defective.

Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo, a guest senatorial candidate of the NP, also favored a shift to manual counting if there would be widespread malfunctioning of the counting machines.

Ocampo said they have long pointed out the technical deficiencies and the lack of preparation for the country's first automated elections and the need for a parallel manual count.

But he said they were wary of reports that some of the machines credited the votes to the wrong candidates.

“More than a technical difficulty, there appears to be manipulation. We must guard the elections well,” Ocampo told the Inquirer.

But Ocampo dismissed the call of lawyer Romulo Macalintal, President Macapagal-Arroyo’s former election lawyer, to postpone the elections for 15 days to give it more time to fix the problem.

“It’s very hard to postpone the elections because everybody is geared for the exercise next week,” Ocampo added.

He said the proposal coming from Macalintal also raised suspicions.

Macalintal resigned from his post early this week which the Palace yesterday denied having anything to do with.

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, who is running for re-election, said the postponement of elections could violate the Constitutional provision setting the date of elections and the automated election laws.

Santiago said postponing the elections would require a joint session of Congress to a pass new election law. /Inquire