Bamban mayor’s amazing election /Bidder protests Comelec ‘partiality’

Senators suspect Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo of Chinese nationality. Initial inquiry revealed:

• Home study up to high school, and registration of birth only at age 17 in 1986. No certificate of home education by a certain “Teacher Rubilyn,” or hospital birth;

• Hazy parentage, but clear ties to offshore gaming for Chinese high rollers;

• Very fluent in Mandarin, which she claimed as self-studied;

• Abrupt entry to politics in late 2021, but elected in May 2022 with a margin of 465 votes against a long-serving barangay chairman.

Former information-communications technology secretary Eliseo Rio analyzed the votes for seven mayoralty rivals. “Election Returns from Bamban’s 65 precincts show the same statistically impossible pattern observed in Sto. Tomas, Batangas and National Capital Region,” he posted on Facebook (https://tinyurl.com/Bamban-Mayoralty). Examples:

• Fifth placer Son Marimla got 0 vote in 16 precincts; 1 vote in each of 21 others; 2 votes in 11; 3 votes in five; 5 votes in another five; 4 votes in four; then 6, 9 and 12 votes in one precinct each.

• Sixth placer Nestor Serrano got 0 in 25 precincts; 1 vote each in 17 others; 2 votes in 13; 3 votes in five; 4 votes in two; 6 votes in another two and 5 votes in one.

• Seventh placer Ferdi Mariano got 0 in 33 precincts; 1 vote each in 21 others; 2 votes in seven; 3 votes in three and 4 votes in one.

“Perfectly sequenced were 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 votes, and so on to the candidate’s highest votes in several precincts. This indicates result manipulation,” Rio noted. “Votes of these bottom placers were trimmed and added to the winning candidate’s. A well-trimmed hedgerow is statistically impossible to grow naturally; it has to be manipulated.”

Rio said: “Compare this irregularity with the votes of the fourth and fifth placers for president in NCR’s 10,462 precincts, which were also obviously trimmed:”

• Fourth placer Ping Lacson got 0 in 38 precincts; 1 vote each in 91 others; 2 votes in 178; 3 votes in 230; 4 votes in 299; 5 votes in 348; 6 votes in 428; 7 votes in 502; 8 votes in 533; 9 votes in 650; 10 votes in 621; 11 votes in 665; 12 votes in 670; 13 votes in 639; 14 votes in 628;

15 votes in 568; 16 votes in 514; 17 votes in 459; 18 votes in 415; 19 votes in 348; 20 votes in 281; 22 votes in 193; 23 votes in 191; 24 votes in 155; 25 votes in 101; 26 votes in 105; 27 votes in 75; 28 votes in 72;

29 votes in 46; 30 votes in 43; 31 votes in 28; 32 votes in 17; 33 votes in 18; 34 votes in 11; 35 votes in 12; 36 votes in 11; 37 votes in 3; 38 votes in 5; 39 votes in 3; 40 votes in 6; 41 votes in 4; 43 votes in 1; 44 votes in 2 and 51 votes in 1.

• Fifth placer Manny Pacquiao got 0 in 205 precincts; 1 vote each in 392 others; 2 votes in 510; 3 votes in 597; 4 votes in 673; 5 votes in 765; 6 votes in 806; 7 votes in 826; 8 votes in another 806; 9 votes in 780; 10 votes in 649; 11 votes in 607; 12 votes in 545; 13 votes in 471; 14 votes in 380;

15 votes in 293; 16 votes in 223; 17 votes in 211; 18 votes in 162; 19 votes in 114; 20 votes in 105; 21 votes in 69; 22 votes in 55; 23 votes in 53; 24 votes in 39; 25 votes in 21; 26 votes in another 21; 27 votes in 23; 28 votes in 12;

29 votes in 8; 30 votes in 5; 31 votes in 6; 32 votes in 7; 33 votes in 3; 34 votes in 2; 35 votes in 3; 36 votes in another 3; 37 votes in yet another 3; 38 votes in 2; 39 votes in 1; 42 votes in 2; and 47 votes in 1.

Lacson was a former national police chief, then senator for 18 years. World boxing champ Pacquiao was senator for six years. Rio said: “Considering that both Lacson and Pacquiao are well known in NCR, it’s unbelievable that the highest Lacson got in a precinct was only 51 votes and Pacquiao’s highest is only 47 votes in one precinct.

“Also Lacson got zero vote in 38 precincts while Pacquiao got zero vote in 205 precincts.

“Consider further that Comelec promulgated Resolution 8804, which states that fourth and lower placers are ineligible to protest. This makes it easier to shave the votes of all candidates from fourth place down, and add these votes to a winning candidate by the thousands in a local position and by the millions in a national position.

“Only the second or third placer may protest. A fourth placer who got zero in the precinct where he voted for himself can no longer protest, even if he clearly knows that his vote was given to a winning candidate.

“Note: seven precincts in Bamban, Tarlac transmitted ERs from the questionable IP Address 192.168.0.2. In all these precincts the winning candidate Alice Guo got very high, if not the highest votes.”

A mayoral candidate must be a Filipino, at least 21 years old, a registered voter for at least one year in the locale and able to read and write in Filipino or any Philippine language.

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Controversy marks Comelec’s P465-million bidding for the overseas balloting portion of Election 2025.

The poll body forbade the renowned AMA Group from supplying the online voting and counting system (OVCS). Yet it accepted a relatively unknown consortium’s extremely low bid.

Declared ineligible was AMA Holdings, with partners Dasan Network Solutions Inc. and Kevoting Inc. Supposedly its third-party certifiers lacked credentials.

Deemed eligible, on the other hand, was the joint venture of SMS Global Technologies Inc. and Sequent Tech Inc. It submitted a bid of P112 million, or less than 25 percent of Comelec’s P465-million approved budget of contract (ABC).

Two questions arose: did the Comelec Technical Working Group thoroughly study the OVCS specs and price? Does the incredibly low bid price meet the technical requirements?

There were over 1.5 million voters in 1,601 overseas precincts in Election 2022. The precincts were spread out in Middle East, 835; Asia-Pacific, 416; North America, 200 and Europe, 150.

Two other parties participated in the recent OVCS bidding. Voatz Inc.-ePLDT-EbiZolucion Inc. Consortium turned in a bid of P435 million. Indra Soluciones Technologias was disqualified.

AMA-Dasan-Kevoting was declared ineligible even before bid opening. Comelec denied the partners’ two motions for reconsideration: first by the Special Bids and Awards Committee (SBAC), on April 4; then by the Comelec en banc, April 12.

In its second appeal before the en banc, AMA-Dasan-Kevoting said the declaration of ineligibility was “tainted with partiality.” Comelec junked the plea because the partners, whose bid had yet to be opened, did not pay the non-refundable protest fee of P2.3 million, 0.5 percent of the ABC.

Comelec Chairman George Garcia told newsmen they merely followed the implementing rules and regulations of the 2016 Revised Procurement Reform Act. SMS-Sequent is currently undergoing post-qualification review, he added.

AMA-Dasan-Kevoting representative Angel Montes said they will take legal action against Comelec, but did not give details.

Comelec-SBAC branded AMA-Dasan-Kevoting ineligible because it failed to submit the credentials of its third-party certifiers Korean Online Privacy Associations and Webmatch.

But the partners had a third creditable certifier, the National Election Commission of Korea. It submitted complete credentials of Comelec’s Korean counterpart.

The rules require only one certifier. The National Election Commission of Korea should have sufficed, AMA-Dasan-Kevoting said. NECK also served as third-party certifier of Miru Systems Co., which earlier won the P17.9-billion supply of electronic hard and software for Election 2025.

“It would be a great disservice to the Filipino people if Movant, which submitted a relatively competitive bid, is not declared eligible in this bidding,” AMA-Dasan-Kevoting pleaded to the en banc. The third-party certification by NECK of Kevoting is enough, it said.

The SBAC allegedly refused to look into the very low bid, behind which is non-submission of ISO 14001 Certification of Environmental Management System, or its equivalent. SMS-Sequent purportedly has no previous experience in national election, only a referendum of 1.2 million voters in Madrid, AMA-Dasan-Kevoting quoted the former’s exec as saying in a post-bid evaluation.

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