There is the question of the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) members upon learning that their votes for Marcos in Lamitan City, Basilan had vanished. In that city, Robredo bagged 100 percent of the votes while Marcos, did not get a single vote. Marcos was endorsed by the INC and the INC members usually vote as a bloc. There are at least three INC churches in the area!


This suspicious lead Robredo has over Bongbong can be traced to the Novotel controversy which took place in the early morning of election day, May 9, 2016. The news media discovered that 20 mysterious executives of Smartmatic were actually camped at the Novotel hotel located at the Araneta Center in Cubao, Quezon City. The LP general campaign headquarters is located at Novotel, and the Araneta Center is owned by the family of Roxas.


Since Smartmatic provided the voting machines used in the elections, the contracted stay of 20 of its executives at the same hotel where the LP general campaign headquarters is located invites suspicion. They could well have been there, testing a number of scripts to enact a number of scenarios such as the "ñ" change that may have triggered the execution of some "trojan horse" or harmful commands from pre-embedded routines. 


Commission on Elections Chairman Andres Bautista admitted that the foreign executives from Smartmatic were in town to help the Comelec in the elections. Bautista added that the foreign personnel are assigned to the Comelec's National Technical Support Center located near Talayan Village in northern Quezon City - which is far, far away from the Comelec election command center at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City.


Foreigners are not allowed to get involved in Philippine elections, so why were the foreign executives of Smartmatic involved in the election? Does the Comelec have the power to amend the law and permit foreigners to intervene in the polls? If the role of the foreign executives is purely technical but vital, why were they not based at the Comelec election command center at the PICC, which ought to be the logical base of their "technical support" operations?


There are many fine hotels in Metropolitan Manila for the Smartmatic foreign executives to select from. Why did they choose Novotel where the LP general campaign headquarters was located? Were they hosted by the LP? If so, then the LP will have a lot of explaining to do.


On the other hand, if the Comelec paid for the hotel accommodations of the foreign executives, why did the Comelec allow them to stay in the same hotel where the LP general campaign headquarters is located? If Smartmatic paid for the hotel accommodations, then that means these foreign executives were in the country in their own private capacities to help the Comelec in the elections - but in violation of the legal prohibition against alien involvement in Philippine elections.


Congress should also pursue its investigation into the Novotel controversy and the alleged manipulation of votes. Audit of the Smartmatic system should also be pursued sooner rather than later before systems logs and other records disappear.


The proclamation of the winner in the vice presidential race should be put off until the public is assured that no cheating took place and that the polls were indeed fair, honest and clean.


Sources: Various

The suspicious Robredo lead over Marcos and the Novotel Cubao controversy

We cannot afford to have a vice president who cheated her way to the second-highest office.