The Department of the Interior and Local Government today slammed Kontra Daya for its wild imagination and conspiracy theories about alleged wide-spread fraud and failure of elections in the just concluded National and Local Elections.

DILG Undersecretary and Spokesperson Jonathan Malaya said that Kontra Daya should instead focus on writing crime or political thrillers because of its overactive imagination. “Kontra Daya’s report on the 2022 election belong in the fiction section of major bookstores or libraries for being the product of a wild imagination,” he said.

He called Kontra Daya’s claim of alleged “failure of the automation election system to guard the sanctity of the ballot” as downright irresponsible since it has no basis whatsoever.

He explained that the source code, the human-readable copy of the software running the Automated Election System of Comelec, was subjected to a thorough review by all political parties, cause oriented groups, and information technology exports. Under the AES law, the code must be checked by all parties at least three months before election day.

“The source code review actually started way back in October 2021. The PPCRV, Namfrel, all the major political parties, and IT experts did a review of the software. They found no irregularities and determined that everything is in order. Don’t you think the Opposition or the Comelec citizen’s arms will just keep quiet if they found anything wrong with the software running the AES?,” he said.

Malaya also said that Kontra Daya’s claim of “widespread failure of election” as baseless and an outright lie. “Only 14 barangays in 3 municipalities in Lanao del Sur in BARMM had failure of elections on election day. And the elections pushed through already in those areas. So what widespread failure of elections are they talking about?”

He said that this shameless claim is an insult to the more 37,000 public school teachers, government employees and policemen who did invaluable service to the nation to ensure the successful conduct of the elections. “Our poll workers did extended service to allay the fears and anxiety of some voters and ensure that the polls are successful and yet Kontra Daya claims that there was widespread failure of elections? Its preposterous!”

He also slammed Kontra Daya for claiming widespread irregularity and violence when in fact the 2022 elections is the safest since the start of the automated election system. “The record speaks for itself. There were only 20 validated election related violent incidents this year compared to 60 incidents in 2019 and 133 incidents in the 2016 polls.”

Malaya said that because of the designation of PNP Focal Persons for Media Security in each city and province in the country, there were zero incidents of violence against media workers in the 2022 elections. “For the first time in the history of Philippine elections, not a single incident of violence against a journalist or media worker was reported. It’s the safest election we have had so far,” he said.

“If there was widespread failure of elections, violence and intimidation, how come 83.1% or more than 56 Million registered voters turned out and were able to vote on election day? This is the highest voter turn-out in the history of our country. This record is impressive given that the polls were held during a pandemic,” he said.

He also added that while it’s true that 915 vote counting machines were defective and needed to be replaced, this accounts for less than 1% of the total number of VCMs used during the polls.

Malaya said that there are also safeguards or redundancies in the voting process such as the parallel vote counting and random manual audit by poll watchdogs such as the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) which has so far produced a 98.73 percent match rate.

The PPCRV has been validating the results of the May 9 national and local elections using the physical copies of election returns (ERs) and checking them against the numbers coming out of the transparency servers of the Commission on Elections.

A 45-day random manual audit of ballots is also being conducted by poll watchdogs LENTE and NAMFREL to check the accuracy of the Vote Counting Machines. The Comelec and election watchdogs have reported a preliminary report of 99.9% accuracy.

“If ever there was widespread disinformation and fake news in these elections, it’s being perpetrated by Kontra Daya and its sponsors whose main purpose is to undermine the integrity of the election process in order to silence the true will of the people,” he said.

Malaya said that Kontra Daya seeks to cast doubt on the integrity of the elections in order to sow chaos and confusion using fake news and disinformation in an attempt to overturn the results. “The agenda behind Kontra Daya is as clear as day. Bumenta na yan. Hindi na magpapaloko pa sa inyo ang publiko,” he added.

Original Article at: https://dilg.gov.ph/news/DILG-slams-Kontra-Daya-for-spreading-fake-news-and-disinformation-to-undermine-the-will-of-the-people/NC-2022-1065