PDP-LABAN legal counsel Israelito Torreon hopes that the Supreme Court will issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) on their petition to revert to manual counting of votes for the 2025 Midterm Elections.
“Under the law, Section 31 of RA 9369 states that manual counting should be done; that’s in the law. Even if you read Section 210 of the Omnibus Election Code in relation to Section 12 of RA 6646, the counting is manual; the transmission being electronic, we have no problem with the consolidation of votes,” said Torreon in an interview at the sidelines of the peace rally on Sunday, April 6, at Rizal park.
Torreon is worried that the election results would be compromised through Internet voting.
“We raise concern because with Starlink, there’s a possibility that there might be hackers… because, according to our experts, it’s really possible; there’s a probability that it could happen,” said Torreon.
Torreon also responded to the statement of Comelec chair Atty. George Garcia that the law needs to be amended first before manual counting can be implemented.
“The Comelec chairman said that the law needs to be amended. Maybe he needs to review it; there is a current law, RA 9369, which actually amended the previous law, RA 8436. In RA 8436, the counting was electronic; that was amended by the present law,” replied Atty. Torreon.
Comelec has yet to issue a statement regarding this, but Garcia previously said they already consulted with the House of Representatives and Senate Electoral Reform committees, and no one opposed Internet voting. Also, the machines reportedly do not have “reception capability” as they are only meant to transmit data.
