Gwen Garcia, Mike Rama, Jonas Cortes attack ACMs

TWO candidates for mayor in Metro Cebu — Michael “Mike” Rama of Cebu City and Jonas Cortes of Mandaue City — have used alleged defects and errors of ACMs or automated counting machines as centerpiece of their separate protests against results of the May 12, 2025 elections.

Last Monday, June 3 (2025), Gwendolyn “Gwen” Garcia, Cebu governor, announced that her election protest is based on the wrongful crediting of her votes to opponent Pamela Baricuatro, indicating digital fraud. She believes that the election results in the race for governors “didn’t reflect the honest will of the people.” She said there’s “growing proof” of fraud, in the form of “technical and software evidence.”

• Gwen lost to challenger Pam, who amassed 1.1 million-plus votes against the incumbent governor’s almost 765,000 votes. The outgoing governor told the Monday meeting with mayors affiliated with One Cebu Party that her protest will contest all the clustered precincts (more than 4,100) in the province.

• Rama polled 120,000-plus votes, against winner Nestor Archival Sr.’s 256,000-plus and Raymond Alvin Garcia’s almost 177,000 votes. Rama in his May 22 protest cited “glitches and defects” of the ACMs, alleging 15 of 31 barangays “have a story to tell about the defective machines.” He asks for a manual recount in all 790 clustered precincts.

• Cortes in his May 23 protest alleged “intrinsic fraud” — “irregularities within the software used in the count” — on top of the “extrinsic fraud” or “procedural issues” during the voting. Cortes lost to Jonkie Ouano, 101,000-plus votes against 94,000-plus votes.

WHY THE MACHINES. A former Comelec official told me Thursday, June 4, 2025, the ACMs, like the PCOS before, are convenient scapegoat in any allegation of cheating. The machines “may be implausible but also possible cause.”

Not surprising then, he said, that ACMs are being blamed. They are and could be the plainest explanation for the alleged massive moving of votes from, say, Rama in Cebu City, Cortes in Mandaue, and Gwen Garcia in the province.

COMMON CULPRIT in the three election protests is the machines, which the Comelec has used in Philippine elections since May 2010, the “first ever” in Southeast Asia at the time.

COMMON PROBLEM is the inherent difficulty of proving that some machines in a losing candidate’s voting area didn’t work or were rigged while most other ACMs did work and thus most likely were not rigged or couldn’t be rigged.

LOSERS ‘TARGETED’? The election cheaters could not be the people who’re not aligned with the administration, which presumably has influence, if not control, over Comelec and its machines.

LINK TO COMELEC. Of the candidates accused in the protests as having committed fraud through, among others, the ACMs, only Jonkie Ouano is related, by marriage, to the House Speaker, who’s suspected to be the power that causes “inexplicable things” happening to Ouano opponents.

Cebu City’s Archival, or his BOPK party boss Tomas Osmeña, has no political or family ties with national administration leaders. Neither does Raymond. If Raymond Garcia had a channel through Guv Gwen, the Garcias wouldn’t have lost. And two Ramas won: Representative Edu Rama in city south district and Mike’s son Mikel as one of the new councilors. And in Mandaue, Cortes’s VM Glenn Bercide won over Ouano’s tandem, 98,000-plus over 92,000-plus.

MIKE’S PROTEST DOESN’T SAY MACHINES WERE RIGGED. Mike Rama won races for mayor in 2010, 2013, and 2022 and for vice mayor in 2019 (in tandem with the late mayor Edgardo Labella), not counting all the elections for city councilor and vice mayor that he had won before 2010, when Comelec started using ACMs.

Mike complained against automation when he lost in 2016 to Tomas Osmeña. But of course, he didn’t complain when he won in 2010, 2013 and 2019.

In losing to BOPK’s Tomas four elections ago, Mike complained he was “PCOSed,” referring to precinct optical scan machines that Comelec would replace with ACMs only in the 2025 elections (Comelec reportedly decided to turn over the “aging” PCOS machines to the Department of Education).

This time, although his election protest doesn’t directly allege it in his election protest, Mike publicly said he was “PCOSed again… they did it to me in 2016.”

ARCHIVAL REPLY TO THE PROTEST includes these defenses:

• Allegations of ACMs’ technical problems and ballots shortage are not enough to overturn results. Only three of 80 barangays “specifically identified” irregularities: in Guadalupe, Suba and Kalunasan. In Marcos vs Robredo, election protests must allege and prove specific irregularities.

• Alleged irregularities and anomalies are “operational and technical issues, not extraordinary problems.” “They are anticipated in any election, and Comelec rules provide for ways and procedures to fix them.” Malfunctioning ACMs? Comelec officials and employees were prepared with technical and operational guidelines to solve them.

• “Electoral history, statistical data, and strong public perception” cannot be ground for electoral protest. Mike Rama enjoyed historical support and Archival is “lesser known”? The results “inconsistent with level of support” during rallies, motorcades?