Ernesto Ordonez, chair of Alyansa Agrikultura, a farmer-fisherfolk coalition composed of 42 federations and organizations representing all major agricultural sectors, today said, they collected the signatures of five presidentiables to throw their support to the snowballing demand for a 100% precinct manual count. The agricultural sector comprises 40% of the voting population, or 16 million voters.

“We have the signatures of five presidential candidates declaring support for the position recommended by Information Technology professionals last April 13. These presidentiables are Former President Joseph Estrada, Senator Jamby Madrigal, Eddie Villanueva, Nicanor Perlas, and J.C. delos Reyes,” Ordonez said

Ordoñez explained: After the voting has been finished, the Board of Election Inspectors will manually count the votes in 100% of the precincts for president, vice president, and a local official selected at random such as governor, mayor or congressman/congresswoman. This count will then be compared to the computer count.

This same position was endorsed by the Management Association of the Philippines, representing the business community, and the Alyansa Agrikultura, representing the farmers and fisherfolk on April 14 and 15, respectively.

An excerpt from the statement said: “If the counts are similar, then the assumption is that the computer count is valid and not rigged. The votes for all positions can then be transmitted as the basis for the proclamation of the winning candidates. But if the votes are different, then the computer count can be assumed to be not valid and possibly rigged. In these cases, the count of all positions will then be undertaken. The manual count will be the basis for the proclamation of the winning candidates.

“For the sake of credible elections and our democracy, we strongly recommend that Comelec adopt this position.”