793 Phil. 9
BERSAMIN, J.:
WHEREFORE, protestant respectfully prays that the Honorable Tribunal:Upon being served with summons and the protest,[4] the protestee submitted his Answer with Motion for Preliminary Hearing on Affirmative Defenses and Counter-Protest with Motion for Precautionary Protection Order,[5] whereby he posited that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction over the protest because the protest was seeking to invalidate not only his election as the Vice President, but also the May 10, 2012 National and Local Elections "as a whole."[6] By way of counter-protest, the protestee claimed that fraud, anomalies and irregularities had occurred in 14,111 clustered precincts (or 59,696 established precincts) in the provinces comprising Regions VI, VII and CARAGA (specifically the Provinces of Aklan, Iloilo, Negros Occidental, Cebu, Bohol, Negros Oriental, Agusan del Norte and Agusan del Sur) that had unduly favored the protestant.[7] He prayed, inter alia, that a preliminary hearing of his affirmative defenses be held, and that the protest be dismissed.
- Immediately upon the filing of the instant Protest, ISSUE a Precautionary Protection Order;
- DIRECTING all City/Municipal Treasurers, Regional Election Directors, Provincial Election Supervisors, Election Officers, responsible personnel and custodians nationwide to take immediate steps and measures to safeguard the integrity of all ballot boxes and their contents, lists of voters with voting records, books of voters, audit logs, statistics report and any and all other documents or paraphernalia used in the 10 May 2010 elections, as well as data storage devices containing electronic data evidencing the conduct and the results of elections in all contested clustered precincts nationwide; and
- DIRECTING the Chairman, Commissioners, Executive Director, Department Directors, Division Chiefs/Heads, responsible personnel and custodians nationwide to take immediate steps and measurers to safeguard the integrity of the following:
- The Automated Election System, which includes but is not limited to, the Electoral Management System and the Election Day Management Platform and their hardware and software components, including the source code, all encryption, decryption and conversion keys, passwords, viewing systems, readers and all necessary and incidental peripheral/collateral systems;
- Back-up compact discs of the Consolidation and Canvassing Systems at the city/municipal/provincial levels;
- Main and back-up compact flash cards of the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines containing the election returns as electronically transmitted to the city/municipal/provincial Boards of Canvassers; and
- Any and all other available sources of election data;
- CREATE and CONSTITUTE a Technical Panel composed of independent experts appointed by the Honorable Tribunal to undertake and supervise the conduct of a comprehensive, system-wide forensic analysis of the Automated Election System, which includes but is not limited to, the Electoral Management System and the Election Day Management Platform, and their hardware and software components;
- ORDER the conduct of a comprehensive, system-wide forensic analysis and comparison (which would not even require the bringing or transmittal of the ballot boxes) of the following, among others;
- The Automated Election System, which includes but is not limited to, the Election Management System and the Election Day Management Platform, and their hardware and software components, including the PCOS machine, source code, all encryption, decryption and conversion keys, passwords, viewing systems, readers and all necessary and incidental peripheral/collateral systems; and
- The genuineness, accuracy and integrity of, among others, the:
- Printed and electronically-generated official ballots and election returns;
- Back-up compact discs of the Consolidating and Canvassing Systems at the city/municipal/provincial levels;
- Main and back-up compact flash cards of the Precinct Optical Scan machines containing the election returns as electronically transmitted to the city/municipal/provincial Board of Canvassers;
- Printed and electronically-generated Statement of Votes by Precinct; and
- Other available sources of election data, such as and compared with the Random Manual Audit Report and Reconciliation Reports;
- ORDER the conduct of a proper, independent and transparent Random Manual Audit of votes cast for Vice-President as required by Section 29 of Republic Act No. 8436, as amended by Republic Act No. 9369, by comparing the votes contained in the official ballots with the votes as recorded by the compact flash cards;
- ORDER the conduct of a manual revision of votes in the contested/affected clustered precincts based on the results of the forensic analysis and Random Manual Audit, and in connection therewith:
- ORDER the ballot boxes and their contents with their keys, lists of voters with voting records, books of voters, audit logs, statistics report, electronic data storage devices and any and all other documents, paraphernalia or equipment relative to the contested clustered precincts to be brought before the Honorable Tribunal;
- CONSTITUTE such number of Revision Committees as may be necessary to conduct the manual revision of votes; and
- ORDER the necessary reconciliation, correction and completion of the affected Election Returns and Certificate of Canvass;
- ANNUL and SET ASIDE the proclamation of protestee Jejomar C. Binay as the duly elected Vice-President of the Republic of the Philippines; and
- PROCLAIM protestant Manuel A. Roxas as the duly elected Vice-President of the Republic of the Philippines.[3]
NOW, THEREFORE, pursuant to Rule 36 of the 2010 Rules of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, You, the Commission on Elections, your agents, representatives, or persons acting in your place or stead, including the municipal treasurers, elections officers, and the responsible personnel and custodians, are hereby DIRECTED to PRESERVE and SAFEGUARD the integrity of the ballot boxes, their contents and keys, list of voters with voting records, books of voters and other documents and paraphernalia used in the May 2010 elections for the position of Vice President of the Republic of the Philippines, as well as the data storage devices containing the electronic data evidencing the results of elections in the contested 76,340 clustered precincts subject of the Protest and Counter-Protest, effective immediately and continuing until further orders from this Tribunal.The Tribunal thereafter set the preliminary conference on September 30, 2010, and designated Associate Justice Bernardo P. Pardo (Ret) as the hearing commissioner.[9] However, because the parties were unable to agree on the common issues, as well as on the procedure to expedite the proceedings at said preliminary conference, Justice Pardo advised them to file their respective desired motions with the Tribunal, including those for the deferment of the retrieval of ballot boxes, and for the disposition of threshold issues.[10]