Self-confessed poll operator surfaces

MANILA, Philippines – A self-confessed operator in vote-rich Quezon surfaced yesterday and admitted that he helped set up a command center in Lucena City where votes from all precincts in his province were diverted and changed in favor of candidates of the administration party.

The witness, who asked to be identified only as “Ka Bert,” was presented to the media by Council of Philippine Affairs (COPA) president Boy Saycon in Alabang, Muntinlupa as part of his group’s advocacy to ensure clean, honest and credible elections.

Ka Bert, a member of the Iglesia ni Cristo, said one month before the elections, he was asked by a mayor of his place, who is also a member of the Liberal Party, to look for a warehouse they can use as a command center for the elections.

“At first I thought it would only be a monitoring center or war room so I didn’t think of anything,” he said in Filipino.

He said the first warehouse he saw was rejected by the mayor and the people from Smartmatic because it was far from voting centers.

“They said they needed a place near voting centers so I looked for a place near the city hall,” he said.

At first, he said, only computer sets and other office equipment were delivered but a week before the elections, nine vote counting machines (VCMs) were delivered to the warehouse.

“That’s when I wondered why we had those VCMs. And when I asked about it, I was told that I should not question it because the order was from the top.”

Ka Bert claimed that nine information technology experts manned and conducted tests on each of the VCMs. Five of them were from Smartmatic while four were from Quezon province.

On election day, he said, all the VCMs were turned on. After the close of voting precincts, he got surprised when the VCMs started to get transmissions from the precincts.

Ka Bert said he personally saw how votes transmitted from the voting precincts were being changed before they were transmitted to the transparency server.

“They changed the votes and put it in the names of other candidates,” he said.

He added that even the votes for incoming president Rodrigo Duterte were shaved and transferred to former interior government secretary Mar Roxas.

He claimed that the votes of Vice President Jejomar Binay and Sen. Grace Poe were also reduced for Roxas.

However, he said the biggest reduction happened to Sen. Bongbong Marcos as some 500,000 votes were given to Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo.

“For Duterte 300,000 votes were reduced and for Binay and Poe, 200,000 each. But for Marcos votes, 500,000 were taken,” he said.

In the certificate of canvass for Quezon, Robredo won with 385,164 votes over Marcos’ 173,394 votes.

‘Unmask people behind vote tampering’

Meanwhile, the camp of Marcos vowed yesterday to unmask and prosecute people behind the tampering of the Automatic Election System that led to discrepancies in the transmission of returns and the under voting of almost four million across the country.

Abakada party-list Rep. Jonathan de la Cruz, Marcos campaign consultant, told The STAR he would deliver a privilege speech today detailing the massive irregularities in the recently concluded election.

He said although they have already filed criminal cases against  officials of the Smartmatic and Commission on Elections (Comelec) they will expose other people including high government officials who  conspired to rig the election results.