Philippine prosecutors on Wednesday dismissed for lack of merit a complaint filed against officials of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Smartmatic, saying there was not enough proof that they conspired to deliberately tamper with the transparency server that allegedly compromised the May elections. Cleared were Smartmatic technical support team head Marlon Garcia, project director Elie Moreno and team members Neil Banigued and Mauricio Herrera, and Comelec employees Rouie Penalba, Nelson Herrera and Frances Mae Gonzales. ADVERTISEMENTJonathan de la Cruz, the first nominee of the Abakada party-list group, filed the complaint on May 24. There was “no clear evidence” of conspiracy that led to Garcia changing of script from “?” to “ñ” because it was done without the authority of the Comelec sitting as a whole. The prosecutors said De la Cruz “failed to show convincing proof that only the Comelec en banc may give such authority” in the first place.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer November 02, 2016 20:03 UTC