Members of Bayan, Kontra-Daya, TNTrio and national-democratic organizations protested before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on February 19 to demand the agency to deal with and resolve matters of fraud in the 2022 election. This is What the Comelec should do, instead of the fake people’s initiative, the groups asserted.

Bayan challenged the agency to decisively reject the fake people’s initiative by returning or throwing away the signatures submitted to and accepted by it. “These signatures were gathered through dubious means and done using government resources,” it said.

Bayan warned that the aggressive push for the fake PI could lead to a no-election scenario. This might lead to simply extending the term of elected officials. “The Comelec would be complicit in the malicious maneuver of politicians if it continues to waver on whether it will verify the fake PI signatures,” the group added.

According to Kontra-Daya, it has not forgotten the fraud and it will not tolerate attempts to cheat the next election. This is what Comelec should work on, instead of the fake people’s initiative and signatures submitted for chacha or charter change.

The groups say it must also decisively tackle the issues, particularly those laid out by the TNTrio group, related to the electronic fraud in the 2022 election that installed Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Sara Duterte in power. TNTrio specifically identified the anomaly of a single IP address from which multiple electoral returns originated.

For now, the group has filed two petitions to open and inspect the ballot boxes and electoral returns identified to have gone through the same machine, contrary to the process laid down by the Comelec before the election. The Comelec has yet to act on this.