By Christina Mendez and Jess Diaz (The Philippine Star)

MANILA, Philippines - Members of the Joint Congressional Canvassing Committee warned yesterday that they would file charges against anyone who delays the proclamation of the next president and vice president with complaints of fraud and irregularities in the May 10 automated elections.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile led the Senate contingent in warning anyone against trying to delay the proclamation, citing the constitutional mandate of Congress to proclaim the new president and vice president by June 30.

“(They) must be made to suffer the full consequences of their deeds. They must all be charged and put to jail for making a mockery of our electoral process. They should find no refuge in Congress,” Enrile said at the opening of yesterday’s joint session of Congress.

Enrile made the statement shortly before the Senate and the House of Representatives approved the rules on the canvassing of votes for president and vice president, which at least one congressman said were still unclear and could delay the tally.

Approval of the rules paved the way for the actual tabulation of votes, which Enrile said would start later this week.

After approving the canvassing guidelines, the two legislative chambers created an 18-member joint canvassing committee and formally named its members. Enrile and Speaker Prospero Nograles are committee co-chairmen.

Since last week, the House committee on suffrage and electoral reforms led by Makati City Rep. Teodoro “Teddyboy” Locsin has been holding a public inquiry into allegations of election fraud, hearing claims of machine tampering, vote buying, vote padding and sale of pre-programmed memory cards.

The allegations came mostly from local level candidates, and none of the claims have as yet been proven.

Enrile said personalities or groups who would keep badgering Congress to accommodate their complaints of fraud and irregularities during the elections could be charged for delaying the constitutional process.

Enrile said it is the “moral duty of Congress” to prevent any person or group from derailing the proclamation of the next president and vice-president.

“Let us be reminded of our moral duty, as members of this Congress, to resist any ill-motivated attempt on the part of some parties or elements, who, taking advantage of these irregularities, or worse, may have deliberately intended to cause the failure of the automation process or the election itself, to derail the proclamation of a new president and vice president,” Enrile said.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Rene Sarmiento agreed that lawmakers should not let their duties as the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC) be hampered by electoral protests.

He said the Comelec should take the responsibility of hearing the complaints of irregularity or fraud and allow Congress to perform its mandate to proclaim the country’s new leaders.

Accuracy versus speed

Enrile and Nograles have agreed that the Senate and the House, convening as the NBOC, will not sacrifice accuracy for speed in the canvassing.

He pointed out the need to scrutinize the “authenticity and the due execution of the certificates of canvass” submitted to the body as provided under the Automated Elections Law or Republic Act 8436.

To avoid questions on the integrity of the canvassing, Enrile said the rules must also ensure that all available means to determine the authenticity of the Certificates of Canvass (COCs) must be pursued, amid reports of neglect or errors on the part of Comelec and its automated election machine provider Smartmatic.

The canvassing would not begin right away, according to Nograles.

He told reporters last night that the committee would begin its meetings at 2 p.m. today with a briefing from officials of the Comelec, Smartmatic and information technology (IT) resource persons on the automation process.

“If they give us a runaround or they conduct the briefing in ‘techie-techie’ language, it will take us long to understand it. They should simplify it. If we can finish that in two to three hours, we can start the canvass tomorrow night,” Nograles said.

Enrile, however, disagreed with Nograles and said the briefing could take even longer.

“I think it will take three days,” Enrile said.

Under the rules, in tallying the votes for president and vice president, the joint committee would compare the provincial and city COCs electronically transmitted to the House with the manually accomplished COCs contained in ballot boxes delivered to the Senate President’s office.

If there is no conflict and there are no questions as to the certificates’ due execution and authenticity, the panel would tally the votes.

If there is conflict or questions, the canvassing of the COCs would be deferred and the committee could summon the members of the boards of canvassers to shed light on these issues.

It could also examine the memory cards of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines and open a “predetermined” number of ballot boxes, if necessary.

Clarifications

Security around the Batasan complex of the House of Representatives was tightened since early yesterday as more than 200 ballot boxes containing the tallies from the provinces, cities and foreign missions were delivered for the national vote tally.

Lawmakers will have to grapple with some technical details of the automated voting, with explanations needed for any discrepancies between the results transmitted electronically and those printed from machines.

Though the two chambers convened in joint session, they voted on the rules separately.

First to vote was the Senate, which approved the rules without any objection, amendment or clarification.

However, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano later took the floor to question the rule allowing the opening of ballot boxes, reading of the ballots and counting of the votes.

Cayetano said if Congress follows the procedure, it would take months, if not years, for it to finish the canvass.

Enrile maintained this is the position of the Senate.

When the turn of the House came, several congressmen sought clarification on certain sections of the proposed rules.

Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman wanted clarification on what version of the COCs – those electronically transmitted to a server installed at the House or those delivered to Enrile’s office – would be used in the tally.

Nograles said the two versions would be used. He referred to the rule mandating the joint canvassing committee to compare the two versions, canvass them if they jibe and defer them if they don’t.

Lagman disagreed, saying the tabulation should be based on the electronically generated COCs and not on the certificates sealed in ballot boxes delivered to Enrile’s office pursuant to the Constitution.

“Otherwise, why did we have to automate the elections if what we will use in the tabulation are the manually accomplished COCs like those produced under the old manual system?” he asked.

Lagman said a delay in the canvass and proclamation of winners is possible if members of the canvassing committee and lawyers of candidates invoke the approved rules.

“But I think that we can still proclaim by the middle of next month, at the latest, even if we follow these unclear, ambiguous rules,” he said.

Rep. Rodante Marcoleta of the party-list group Alagad agreed with Lagman.

Marcoleta said there is no need to compare the two versions of the COCs since the automated election law provides that the electronically transmitted certificates are the official documents that should be used in the canvass.

For his part, Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez inquired about the deletion of a paragraph in Section 17 of the rules allowing the joint committee to determine the votes received by candidates “in words and figures in the COC against the aggregate number of votes appearing in the election returns of precincts covered by the COC.”

Nograles explained this was deleted “for the purpose of a speedier canvass because it could be used to delay the tally.”

He later told reporters that “there would be no resort to the ERs (election returns) and the ballot boxes containing the ballots.”

The rules also provide that Congress would proclaim the winning presidential and vice presidential candidates together.

However, Enrile and Nograles said it’s possible that the winning president might be proclaimed ahead of the vice president because the vice presidential race is too close to call.

Enrile said there is one COC for votes for candidates for president and a separate COC for vice presidential candidates.

“We will try to canvass both COCs at the same time and proclaim the presidential and vice presidential winners together,” Nograles added.

Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino senatorial candidate JV Bautista said it would be against the Constitution to proclaim the president ahead of the vice president.

“The Constitution does not say that a president can be proclaimed ahead of the other, or vice versa,” he said.

In the unofficial tally, Liberal Party (LP) standard-bearer Sen. Benigno Aquino III is leading his closest rival, former President Joseph Estrada, by about 5.1 million votes.

Estrada’s running mate, Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, is ahead by about 800,000 votes over LP vice presidential candidate Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II.

“We’ll make sure we can accomplish our work so that the country can have a president and a vice president to succeed the President and Vice President on June 30,” Enrile said.

“I would say that the earliest we can proclaim is June 4; the latest, as far as I am concerned, is June 15,” he said.

Malacañang, on the other hand, expressed optimism that the national canvassing would proceed smoothly.

“The Palace will simply watch how the canvassing will actually come and we’ll be expressing only our hope and our prayers that the canvassing would be quick and there would be less debates on the rules, so that the canvassing of votes for the presidential and vice presidential elections would start immediately,” presidential deputy spokesman Rogelio Peyuan said. –With Paolo Romero, Sheila Crisostomo, Jose Rodel Clapano