The son of comebacking Manila Mayor and campaign manager Lito Atienza on Tuesday reiterated their apeal before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for manual counting in the city after discovering technical glitches in almost 80 percent of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines.

During a press conference, Ali Atienza, said they have received repports and complaints from their watchers regarding the said testing of the PCOS machines wherein most of it failed to read votes for the mayoralty position. In the press conference, Ali showed the results of the testing. He also said that in District 3, the votes for his father were credited to incumbent Mayor Alfredo Lim.

The younger Atienza said the poll body must immediately find solution on the said case now that the election is just six days away.

“Hindi lamang dito sa Maynila pwede mangyari dito kundi sa buong bansa,” Ali said, noting that he is for the computerization of the elections in the country. “I am for computerization but not now. It is safer for everyone kung mano-mano muna, dahil sa ngayon ay puro mali ang lumalabas sa PCOS machines . Ano ang mangyayari sa resulta ng elections? Ang mahirap kasi baka hindi na mapagkatiwalaan ng tao ang computerized elections dahil sa mga pwedeng mangyari na gaya nito,” he said.

However, Ali said that they could use the machines to double check the results of the elections, but the results of the manual counting must be the official basis for the proclamation of winning candidates.

He explained that changing the chips of the machines is useless because the machine itself has problems. “There is a major problem in the machines, not in the chips. Every system tumatakbo ang program inside the machines.” Further, Ali cited that Filipinos would have no problem with manual voting as they are already familiar with it, so the room for error is very little.

Atienza alleged that the glitches in the testing has a strong connection with the earlier discovery of City Hall-Electronic Data Processing (EDP) Unit by a City Hall employee, Nilda Reluya on the supposed “results” prior to the elections wherein Lim’s camp, from Presidential candidiate Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino down to the councilors had a landslide victory.