MANILA, Philippines – The camp of vice-presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr will file a complaint on Friday, May 20, against Smartmatic’s Marlon Garcia, for breaching protocol of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) when he accessed the Transparency Server to apply a change in script.

Garcia was Smartmatic’s project manager of the 2016 elections.

“Just to prove to you that we are very serious about this and we are not letting go, Congressman Jonathan Dela Cruz will be filing a case against Marlon Garcia for the violation of the Automated Election Law as amended,” lawyer Jose Amorado of Marcos’ legal team told reporters on Thursday, May 19.

Amorado was referring to Republic Act Number 8436 or the law on automated elections. Dela Cruz earlier said that Smartmatic’s intervention in the election system violated a provision under Section 25: “Utilizing without authorization, tampering with, damaging, destroying or stealing of official ballots, election returns, and certificates of canvass of votes used in the system is prohibited.” 

Aside from the complaint, they will also file a request letter with the Comelec to check the USB devices, compact flash (CF) cards, and vote counting machines (VCMs) used in the conduct of the May 9 election. 

“Ang gusto naming mangyari na tapusin natin yan, ayusin natin ang issues na ito bago tayo magkaron ng totoong official canvass dahil kung hindi nagkakaron ng ganung linaw, eh siyempre magkakaroon ng agam-agam,” said dela Cruz. 

(What we want to happen is for us to resolve this, fix all issues before we conduct an official canvass because if we don’t, there will be doubts.) 

Congressional hearing

The Senate and the House of Representatives were set to hold a joint congressional hearing Thursday on issues that affected the election, including the script change in the Transparency Server suspected by Marcos’ camp to have caused the sudden increase in votes of Liberal Party bet Leni Robredo. 

Marcos’ legal team was set to attend the hearing but it was cancelled because Smartmatic representatives were unavailable.

“Smartmatic has been quick to claim that such change was merely cosmetic and did not in any way alter the results of the elections. If that is so, we expect them to be the ones eager to take advantage of the opportunity, which the hearing is providing, to settle the issue,” Marcos said in a statement.

Despite the Comelec’s explanation that the change in script has not affected the vote count in any way, Marcos’ camp has stuck to their position on the need to open the system for public auditing.

Amorado and Dela Cruz, representing Marcos, filed a formal letter of request with the Comelec on Wednesday, May 18, to allow their own IT experts to check their servers. – Rappler.com