Comelec chair Garcia urges opening of ballot boxes in petition vs. Smartmatic

Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman George Garcia on Tuesday said that he would propose to the Comelec en banc the opening of ballot boxes in Eleksyon 2022.

In an ambush interview, Garcia said this was a “win-win solution” to address the allegations of irregularities in Smartmatic’s services during the conduct of the last national elections.

“Naisip ng inyong lingkod para ma-settle once and for all, siguro ipo-propose ko sa en banc na gawa kami ng isang mabilisang procedure na kung saan 17 regions tayo, mamili na lang sila, pili ng kahit anong presinto, petitioner ang pipili, pabuksan natin ang ballot boxes,” Garcia said.

(I thought, so we could settle this once and for all, to probably propose to en banc for us to make a quick procedure wherein in the 17 regions, the petitioner would pick ballot boxes that we’ll open.)

“Bilangin natin isa isa ang balota at tignan natin kung tumugma o hindi sa election returns,” he added.

(We will count the ballots one by one to see if they match or not with the election returns.)

The petition sought to block Smartmatic from the poll body’s procurement of a new automated election system (AES) for the 2025 national and local elections.

It was filed by former Department of Information and Communications Technology chief Eliseo Mijares Rio Jr., Augusto Cadelina Lagman, Franklin Fayloga Ysaac, and Leonardo Olivera Odono on June 15.

Garica said the poll body was looking resolve the issue by next week.

Smartmatic said on Tuesday that the allegations were "not only false but are mere baseless speculations with a singular goal of maligning our company.”

“We confidently stand by the demonstrable 100% accuracy of the results of the 2022 elections in the same way that we remain very confident in the untarnished reliability and integrity of our products and solutions,” Smartmatic said in a statement.

Smartmatic also said it was confident that the Comelec would dismiss the petition for “sheer lack of merit.” —NB, GMA Integrated News