“…They conceive trouble and give birth to evil; their womb fashions deceit and cheating… Food gained by fraud and cheating tastes sweet, but one ends up with a mouth full of gravel…” –Job 15:25, Proverbs 20:17
This column will give way for an appeal by former Biliran lone district Rep. Glenn Chong, who is furiously working to prevent the Commission on Elections (Comelec) from, once again, using the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines by Smartmatic Inc. in the upcoming 2019 midterm elections.
He called on Filipinos who can no longer stomach electoral cheating to sign a change.org petition, which was posted by Atty. Trixie Cruz Angeles.
Here is the English version of Chong’s appeal, which he posted on Facebook: “The Commission on Elections has opted to continue the use of Smartmatic for the 2019 elections. Revelations made by Atty. Glenn Chong and results of examinations made in the Marcos v. Robredo vice presidential contest indicate possible massive cheating in 2016. A simple solution can check this cheating and return the people’s trust in the electoral exercise: a count of the voter’s receipts… We propose that at the end of the voting day, the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) convene with the watchers of the national candidates or their parties and count the votes contained in the voters’ receipts. We will call this PLAN B against election cheating. These receipts are kept in a separate box that the BEI can open and count. We can limit the counting only to candidates for senators, congressmen, governors, mayors and partylists. After counting, these can be compared with the tally posted at the door as well as those transmitted to the city. This simple procedure will require no extra cost except for the small amount of time allocated for this activity. A separate written petition will be sent to the COMELEC to formalize this petition, which can be accessed at change.org. Let us join the petition! Sign it now! Remember that there is no one who will help us but ourselves alone. Thank you for participating in our efforts to restore honesty in our elections.”
Sign the petition
It is the duty and responsibility of every Filipino to ensure accusations of electoral cheating are leveled against the Comelec and Smartmatic are laid to rest. Some accusations even question former President Benigno S. Aquino III’s victory, which was said to be tainted with fraud by the Comelec, which was then-under Jose Melo.
The petition can be found on change.org under the title, “Protect the Philippine election from smart cheating.”
All of us should be interested in joining this fight against cheating, especially since future generation may be impacted. We should show the world that Filipinos do not condone fraud.
If we don’t speak now, who will speak for us? If we don’t act now, who will act for us? If we don’t do anything now, when should be take action?
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