A Precinct Counting Optical Scanner (PCOS) machine failed to transmit the data to the servers during the filed test conducted at Aguho Elementary School in Pateros on Wednesday. The COMELEC blames the defective SIM (Subscriber Identification Module) for the failure.

“The concern there was not actually the system but the use of the mobile network,” Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal clarified. “We changed the SIM card and it was able to transmit, which is to say that the system works,” he added. However, Commissioner Larrazabal refused to identify the telecommunications company that provided the SIM card.

The Commission on Election (COMELEC) Second Division junks the three (3) petitions to disqualify former president Joseph ‘Erap’ Estrada from running in the 2010 Presidential election. The poll body ruled to junk the 2 petitions filed by Evilio Pormento and Mary Lou Estrada for lack of merit.

“The better policy approach is to let the people decide who will be the next president. For on political questions, this Court may err but the sovereign people will not,” COMELEC’s Second Division said in a decision junking the petition filed against former president Estrada last December.