Comelec to Declare Failure of Elections in CamSur After PET Discovers New Anomaly

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is set to declare failure of election in the entire province of Camarines Sur (CamSur) in the 2016 elections. This is after the Supreme Court (SC) sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) on manual vote recount of the vice presidential race discovered a new anomaly in the said province last week.

Loading...

According to a report at Philstar on Monday, April 30, their source said that revisers discovered several ballots that were likely to have been soaked in liquid chemical in the towns of Canaman and Garchitorena, in Camarines Sur, during the fourth week of the ongoing recount. Also found were jumbled election documents and voters’ receipts.

“Those ballots were powdery and no longer readable as the prints were erased. That would have not been the case if they were soaked only in water,” the source, who requested anonymity was quoted telling to Philstar, adding that there were also more wet ballots found in other towns in the home province of Vice President Leni Robredo.

Out of the 16 of the 36 ballot boxes retrieved from Canaman, the PET learned that 11 of them had all ballots wet and not readable. There were also ballots that were placed inside a plastic bag in the same town. In addition, their voter’s receipts did not correspond to their respective clustered precincts but instead to other precincts.

On the third week, PET found a ballot box from Ocampo, also in Camarines Sur that had cigarette burns on the edges and holes in the middle portion of the ballots. Those ballots were said to have votes shaded for VP Robredo. Likewise, the same ballot box had no election records such as election returns, voter’s receipts and minutes of voting.

With this, the Comelec en banc is set to issue a resolution declaring a failure of election in CamSur within this week. According to a Comelec insider, the various anomalies discovered during the four-week vote recount by PET are sufficient enough for such declaration, and that a thorough investigation on those issues will proceed very soon.



“The Comelec has already enough reasons to declare a failure of election in CamSur. It will be a just a waste of time and money to continue the recount in the province. The result of the investigation will be released right after.” The insider said. As of posting, the camps of Robredo and former senator Bongbong Marcos have not yet commented on this matter.

Contributed by Orlando Gagui