The Commission on Elections on Thursday said it welcomes the “writ of mandamus” petition urging the Supreme Court to order the preservation of data transmission logs from the 2022 National and Local Elections last 9 May.
The petition was filed before the Supreme Court on Thursday by former Department of Information and Communications Technology Secretary Eliseo Rio Jr., former National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections Chief Augusto Lagman, and former Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines President Franklin Ysaac.
Indicated in the petition as respondents are Comelec and Smartmatic, as well as telecommunications companies Dito Telecommunity, Globe Telecom and Smart Communications.
“This is a much welcome development wherein all parties, including the Comelec, will be able to conclusively respond to all issues under judicial processes,” Comelec spokesperson Atty. John Rex Laudiangco said.
Laudiangco said that they have yet to receive a copy of the petition, but explained that the poll body will follow through the process ordered by the Supreme Court.
“As we have consistently stated (with) regard (to) citizens who may have issues relative to the electoral processes, the Comelec Rules of Procedure, as well as the Rules on Civil Procedure, provide for the proper avenues by which these may be properly ventilated within the ambit of due processes of law and public order,” Laudiangco said.
“The Comelec, as always, will abide by any order or processes of the Honorable Supreme Court,” he added.
The petitioners seek to preserve the said data for scrutiny, as petitioners question the more than 20 million votes during the first hour of transmission of data on the Comelec Transparency Server following the closure of the polls at 7 p.m. on election night.
In a television interview on 24 October, Rio also claimed that certain data has been pre-loaded, leading to the questionable transmission log during the said hour.
“The transparency server has been preloaded. Whoever inputted that data, already knew what the official count was. It is important for the Comelec to counter this by showing the transmission report,” Rio said.