ROXAS WARNS COMELEC VS REPEAT OF ARMM CHEATINGS

Vice-presidential race frontrunner Senator Mar Roxas vowed the Liberal Party and other advocates of reform and good governance will not tolerate any cheating in the coming elections and accept any victory that comes from cheating.

Roxas, the Liberal Party president and its candidate for Vice-President, issued the stern warning following reports that the National Printing Office (NPO) experienced a mechanical glitch while printing ballots for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) that caused the printing of the more than 1.7 million ballots for the without the security markings of the NPO.

The ARMM has 1,731,199 voters, or 3.4% of the country's total of 50,723,734 million registered voters.

Roxas said it was highly unusual how the printing machines bogged down when it was printing the ARMM ballots from February 7 to 15 and then started working properly again for the printing of the next batch of ballots.

"Nakakapagtaka naman ito. Paano nangyaring nasira ang machines nung ang mga balota para sa ARMM ang ginagawa pagkatapos ay naging maayos na uli nung ibang mga balota na ang ginagawa? Aba, milagro naman ito. Mukhang may niluluto na naman itong administrasyong ito (This is really puzzling. How did it happen that the machines encountered problems while printing the ARMM ballots and yet were working properly again when the NPO began printing the other batches? This is a miracle. It's obvious this administration is cooking something illegal again)," Roxas said.

He also chided the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for its indifference to the blunder, saying it should have insisted on the reprinting of the ballots instead of allowing Smartmatic-TIM to simply put ultraviolet signs on the ballots as security marks.

Roxas said the ARMM ballots are now exposed to fraudulent activities, pointing out that without the necessary security markings, it would now be easy to duplicate the ballots by simply using the right printer and paper to make the 'fake' copies.

He said this is what happened in previous elections, when fake ballots were given to voters while the ones with security markings were filled up by flying voters and used in the counting of votes in some ARMM provinces.

"Kailangang maging mapagmatyag tayong lahat. Lahat ay gagawin ng administrasyong ito para pigilan ang papalapit ng pananaig ng mga puwersa ng pagbabago (We all have to be vigilant. This administration will do everything to prevent the forces of change from prevailing in the elections)," Roxas said.