Comebacking Manila Mayor Lito Atienza yesterday called on the Commission on Elections to place the city under its control following the discovery of election returns containing numbers of Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOs) machines that are being prepared at the City Hall.
Atienza said there was clearly an attempt on the part of incumbent Mayor Alfredo Lim and Vice Mayor Isko Moreno to rig the election results in the city because the “ready counted ballots” with PCOS number were being prepared right inside the Electronic Data Processing (EDP) of the Office of the Mayor.
Apart from full Comelec control, Lito Atienza also asked Commissioner Jose Melo to disqualify Lim for violating the election law which can be considered a criminal offense. He said he also wants a manual counting of votes to prevent fraud.
Atienza also urged Melo to relieve the Comelec district supervisor in District 1 because of his possible connivance with Lim’s camp. He added that Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) should also keep a close watch on the electoral process to stop any form of cheating during the elections.
The former DENR secretary’s pronouncements came following the expose made by Ronilda Reluya, Computer Operator 1 assigned at the Electronic Data Processing (EDP) Unit, an office under the Office of the Mayor of Manila.
In her complaint-affdavit, Reluya said she accidentally discovered the election fraud attempt last April 26. She said that around 10:30 a.m., about eight people clad in civilian clothes but wearing IDs showing they are employees assigned at the Office of the City Legal Officer, went inside the EDP unit.
Surprisingly, she said their boss, EDP chief Gary Tan, through his assistant, Clarice de Leon, ordered them to get out of the office as the people who have just arrived would be using their computers.
Reluya said they were even told to take a walk at the nearby SM City Manila. But while her coworkers went out, she opted to stay to be observe what those people were up to.
After about 30 minutes, the eight people left. But she noticed that one of the computers was not properly logged off.
“Out of curiosity, I took a peek of what was displayed in the monitor. I read the title/caption of the file they prepared as ‘Election 2010-Election Proper.’ I then browsed the data in the said file and I saw that it yielded election results for the May 10, 2010 elections for the position of president, vice president, congressman, mayor, vice mayor and city councilors,” Reluya said in her affidavit.
She added she was shocked to find on top of her table several pieces of paper, which turned out to be the print outs of purported election results. She said she secretly took the papers and had them photocopied.
“It was only then that I was able to see that those papers are print outs of results of votes cast at various clustered precincts at the Amado V. Hernandez Elementary School, with PCOS 101, 102, 103, 104, and 105, and these are being transmitted elsewhere,” said Reluya, who resigned from her post out of fear that Lim’s group would get back at her.
“We are confident of the evidence that we have. I think this is enough reason for Mayor Lim to be disqualified this coming elections,” Lito Atienza stressed, adding that Lim’s camp is desperate to resort to fraud just to win in the elections.
Recent Comments