TUMAOB ANG PALAYOK
19 July 2025
Comelec chief Garcia charged
with 61M counts of cyber-fraud
by Jarius Bondoc - July 18, 2025
Comelec Chairman George Garcia has been charged with 61 million counts of cyber-fraud.
Each count fetches imprisonment of six years and one day to 12 years. Plus, minimum P200,000 fine, increasable “to a maximum amount proportionate to the damage caused by the offense”.
Garcia was accused of breaking the 2012 Cybercrime Prevention Act. Specifically, “system interference” during the May 12th congressional-local electronic election.
Also impleaded at the NBI last week were Comelec commissioners Aimee Feralino-Ampoloquio, Roy Bulay, Norina Tangaro-Casinga, Nelson Celis, Ernest Maceda, and Noli Pipo.
“System interference” supposedly was committed three ways:
• The wrong source code was installed in 110,000 precinct counting machines;
• An unauthorized “intermediary server” called Data Center-3 “consolidated and processed” 55,874,700 votes before transmittal to five transparency servers of PPCRV, NAMFREL, Media, Dominant Majority Party, and Dominant Minority Party;
• Comelec by itself “cleaned-up/deleted” what it called “discrepancy” of up to five million votes, without informing beforehand PPCRV, NAMFREL, Media, Dominant Majority Party, and Dominant Minority Party.
Those numbers add up to 60,984,705 counts of cyber-fraud.
Complainants are multi-faith hierarchs, retired generals, computer experts, and lawyers:
Catholic Bishops Jose Bagaforo, Roberto Gaa, Gerardo Alminaza, and World Evangelical Alliance Efraim Tendero; former AFP chief Gen. Generoso Senga, retired PNP generals now Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, Wilfredo Franco, and Alejandro Camagay, Capt. Roberto Yap, retired Army general and ex-DICT Secretary Eliseo Rio, ex-Comelec commissioner Gus Lagman, former Finex presidents Franklin Ysaac and Edwin Fernandez, Fr. Wilmer Tria, and Attys. Melchor Magdamo, Harold Respicio, and Alex Lacson.
All are members of thousands-strong Alyansa ng Nagkakaisang Mamamayan of religious leaders, retired senior officers, women and youth groups, professionals, and NGOs.
“We’re not seeking vote recount nor declaration of failed election,” Fernandez told Sapol-DWIZ, Saturday.
Lacson added: “We just want to ascertain that fraud was committed in Election 2025, to prevent repeat in Election 2028. NBI is the prime enforcer of the Cybercrime Law.”
Bring it on, Garcia said of the complaint: “We welcome the chance to answer.” The six commissioners prefer to reply only to the NBI.
Pro V&V of Alabama certified Automated Election System source code version 3.4.0 on Apr. 30th, complainants averred. But Comelec installed version 3.5.0 in 110,000 machines on or before election day May 12th.
Comelec gave two conflicting explanations, Lacson alleged. One, that complainants weren’t present during the final trusted build and end-to-end demo during which 3.5.0 was installed. Two, versions 3.4.0 and 3.5.0 purportedly were the same.
To the first point, Respicio differentiated Pro V&V’s report posted on Comelec’s website and his video of the source code installation at Reina Mercedes, Isabela, where he ran and won as vice mayor.
For versions 3.4.0 and 3.5.0 to be one and the same defies international computer protocols. E.g.: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are programmed to register the date of file creation and any modification thereafter. Meaning version 3.4.0 must have been modified, and thus automatically renamed itself 3.5.0.
Data Center-3 was an illegal “machine in the middle” that manipulated results, complainants added. It broke the 2007 Automated Election Systems Law and Comelec’s own guidelines.
The AES Law requires voting machines to transmit results directly to Municipal/City boards of canvassers, and Comelec central and back up servers. Also, for Election 2025, directly to Comelec’s five authorized transparency servers of PPCRV, NAMFREL, Media, and Dominant Majority and Minority Parties. Data Center-3 was never mentioned in Comelec’s general instructions.
When precincts closed at 7 p.m. of May 12th, vote machines began printing results and transmitting, which took about 15 minutes. Yet up to 9 p.m. PPCRV and NAMFREL received no results, prompting them to publicly complain to Comelec.
“Respondent Garcia during a press conference on May 13th admitted that election results were transmitted from the machines to the servers in batches and not in real time,” complainants quoted him:
“Yung sa NAMFREL, PPCRV, Media, Majority and Minority, hindi real-time kaagad. Kasi kinakailangan i-proseso yung data na natatanggap nila. Kasi pag pinadala yung data, ang tawag dyan machine readable. So, kinakailangan i-proseso.
“Sabihin nating nakapagdala na ng dalawang presinto. Sa first 15 minutes ang matatanggap ng lahat ng entities tig-dalawang precincts. Sa amin, kita ninyo kaagad yung boto. Dito sa mga entities, baka hindi niyo pa kagad makita ang boto, baka madelay ng konti, ipaprocess pa nila para maging human readable. Kailangan meron silang program para ma i-process into human readable data.”
Garcia in effect contradicted the purpose of transparency servers, i.e., to publicize results as they come. So on election night, PPCRV decided to not post anything. NAMFREL and Media posted only till midnight.
That midnight, media outlets “discovered a vote discrepancy, which later turned out to be around five million votes,” complainants said. “At 2 a.m. Comelec suspended release of any additional election results. Comelec posted its next results data past 6:30 a.m.
“Comelec ‘cleaned-up’ or ‘deleted’ the five-million vote discrepancy by itself. No presence or participation of PPCRV, NAMFREL, Media and 2 Dominant Political Parties.”
The AES Law forbids any human intervention once voting machines start transmitting, until end of national tallying. That’s why on election night 2016 public outrage ensued and Smartmatic Exec. Marlon Garcia was indicted simply for editing “Osmena” to “Osmeña” in the transparency server.
More so if five million votes are “cleaned-up”/ “deleted”.
ANIM complainants didn’t mention it. But the AES Law also considers such large-scale vote slashing or adding as “electoral sabotage”, punishable by life imprisonment.
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