Former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is urging the Department of Justice to file criminal charges against Commission on Elections (Comelec) staff and Smartmatic officers for allegedly tampering with the results of the May 9 2016 elections.
Bongbong Marcos’ poll adviser, former Abakada Rep. Jonathan dela Cruz, filed a petition with the DOJ on Friday to overturn the Nov. 3 decision of the Office of the City Prosecutor of Manila dismissing the cyber-crime cases he filed against three Comelec IT experts and four Smartmatic officers led by Venezuelan Marlon Garcia.
In his 28-page petition, Dela Cruz said the OCP-Manila erroneously dismissed the cases when it failed to consider that prohibited acts under the Cybrecrime Prevention Act included “mala prohibita” (a conduct prohibited by law but not inherently evil) when it deemed the respondents as having acted with right or authority, and when it failed to appreciate the allegations in the complaint affidavit.
The respondents were charged for their unauthorized system change in the Transparency Server when they replaced “?” with “ñ” in the names of candidates while the transmission of votes was ongoing on the night of May 9, 2016.
Marcos lost by 263,000 votes to Vice President Leni Robredo. He claimed that he was cheated of 3 million votes.