BBM CAMP CONFIDENT COMELEC WILL ALLOW SYSTEM AUDIT OF AES BEFORE START OF CANVASSING

The camp of Vice Presidential candidate, Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos, Jr. today expressed confidence that the Commission on Elections will allow a system audit of the transparency and central servers of the Automated Election System before the start of the official canvassing of votes on Wednesday, May 25.

Lawyer Jose Amor Amorado, Chief of the Quick Count Center of Sen. Marcos, said they are confident that the poll will accede to their letter to allow for an audit of the transparency and central servers as well as getting access to transmission logs, vote counting machines (VCM), USB devices, BGAN or Broadband Global Area Network, digitally signed election returns (ERs) and the public and decryption keys to open the transmitted files.

"We remain hopeful that Comelec will grant our demand to open the AES for audit because I am sure the Comelec would want to uncover the truth in the unauthorized change in script of the transparency server," Amorado said.

He stated that with the integrity of the elections on the line with the unauthorized script change by Smartmatic personnel, the Comelec especially its Chairman Andres Bautista would want to erase all doubts as regards the issue by consenting to the system audit.

Marcos had earlier asked the Comelec to allow his IT experts as well as other candidates and interested parties to audit the two servers, under supervision by the poll body.

He said this is the only way to find out if the unauthorized script change in the transparency server produced only a cosmetic change--as the poll body claimed--or much more

Jonathan Dela Cruz, Marcos' Campaign Adviser said that with such a closely-fought contest it would be to the best interest of both parties to ensure there won't be any doubt on the results of the elections so the winner can assume office with a clear mandate from the Filipino people.

"Viewed in this light, our demand for the conduct of a system audit is not only very reasonable but also absolutely necessary. If Rep. Robredo is really interested in finding out the truth and ensuring the credibility of the election results she should join us in our call for a system audit," he said.

"The Senator also wants to know the number of Consolidation and Canvassing System laptops/servers that were reported to contain rogue votes coming from the pre-election logical accuracy test and mock elections on election day; the municipalities, cities and provinces affected; and the measures the poll body took to rectify the supposed error."

In a separate action, Dela Cruz had likewise filed before the Comelec on Friday charges for violation of the Automated Election Law against Smartmatic personnel Marlon Garcia and three other persons in connection with the introduction of a new script into the transparency sever without proper authorization from the Commission.