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Enrile wants 76,000 CF cards to be retrieved and audited


Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile on Thursday requested the retrieval, inventory and audit of all the 76,000 compact flash cards and precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines used in the May 10 polls. During the National Board of Canvassers’ Thursday session, Enrile also asked the body to create an independent technical committee that would check the CF cards as part of its mandate to ascertain the authenticity and due execution of the certificates of canvas (COC). Speaker Prospero Nograles said the House has no serious objection to the proposal to form a technical group, but suggested that the info-technology (IT) experts of the two chambers of Congress should be the ones to audit the CF cards and PCOS machines. Nograles said the technical group should be composed of the Senate’s IT group and the Lower House’s IT group. He said allowing a technical body to handle the work picture will prevent the NBOC from being "trapped in so much debate on technical aspects." For his part, Enrile said while the IT experts are busy auditing the counting machines, the NBOC could proceed with the canvassing proper and start the actual opening of COCs. "[This will help us] accomplish our function within a reasonable time with the onset of the final date of June 30. So we can at least proclaim a president and vice president," Enrile said. Nograles suggested that the NBOC first canvass COCs from overseas absentee voting, before going over the remaining COCs. The technical working group that will be created will be accountable to the NBOC. The Commission on Elections, on the other hand, expressed apprehension that the process of checking all CF “would take months" to finish. "We agree on the proposal of the Senate President that all the 76,000 CF cards would be retrieved and subjected to study by IT experts from the House, Senate but it would take months, it's like opening 76,000 ballot boxes," Comelec chairman Jose Melo told the body. Nograles assured Melo, however, that the technical group will not audit all the CF cards but only those which the NBOC wants to be checked. The NBOC, however, as of posting time, has yet to act on Enrile's recommendation.—JV, GMANews.TV

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