Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III on Thursday chided Commission on Election (Comelec) Commissioner Robert S. Lim for commenting on a purely diplomatic matter regarding the topic of China possibly becoming the biggest threat to the 2016 elections.
WHILE the military has yet to ascertain the authenticity of intelligence reports that China may attempt to sabotage the 2016 elections, an official of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said the potential is there and it is “frightening”.
A military source, meanwhile, said they are still checking where the report came from.
“The commission made it non-negotiable that the provider would have to transfer the facilities to Taiwan at their expense”, he added.
Beijing and Manila have been locked in a maritime dispute over the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), which China claims.
The Tribunal is expected to hand down its decision whether it has jurisdiction over the dispute by the end of 2015. “It’s only about sabotaging the machines, there might be issues of trade embargo, so how will the machines be released to us?”, Mr. Lim told reporters.
“Initially as per contract negotiations, we made it a point to discuss with Smartmatic that we didn’t want the factory in China although we announced that it was going to be in Suzhou… we made a condition in the contract negotiations that they will do it outside China”. We don’t want that.
“With this, you can be sure that they are taking the necessary steps to ensure the integrity of our electoral process”, the source said.
“It’s not only sabotage in the machine itself”. Just get reliable machine parts and components. There could be restrictions on visiting the site.
“We really chose this option because Smartmatic committed that all 93,977 machines would be physically in the Philippines by January 31, 2016”, the poll chief added. “We wanted to take less precaution”, he said.
The alleged sabotage, he explained, could arise from the manufacture in China of the 23,000 vote counting devices called the Optical Mark Reading (OMR) machines leased by the Comelec from the Smartmatic firm.
Smartmatic-TIM project manager Marlon Garcia confirmed this move, saying that they have heeded the Comelec’s request despite an additional cost worth about 5% on top of the contracts.
CHINA SABOTAGE? A Comelec official warns on September 16, 2015, that China might “sabotage” the Philippine elections in May 2016.
The Chinese embassy in the Philippines denied any such plan.
“China has always adhered to the principle of non-interference into other countries’ internal affairs, he said”.
On May 9, the Philippines will elect a new president and vice president, the House of Representatives and Senate as well as provincial governors and city mayors.