Msgr. Pedro Quitorio, an official of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) advised the Commission on Elections (Comelec) not to be overconfident saying cellphone jammers are not a serious threat to the elections.

“It’s not good to be overconfident. This is a serious threat,” Msgr. Pedro Quitorio, media director of the CBCP, said in an interview.

“Maybe they should do some testing for a counter jammer but I really doubt,” he added.

Quitorio said this early the Comelec should come up with an alternative in case something went wrong during especially during Election Day.

“In the CBCP statement we also encouraged Comelec to prepare a fallback position in the event that there’s technical or logistical glitches,” he said.

“Given this report about jamming I think it’s only proper that they prepare for a serious problem such as this. This is a serious technical problem because a jammer is easily available,” added Quitorio.

The CBCP official then suggested to the poll body to consider the manual delivery of the election results to the municipality.

“From what I know, that can’t be resolved by a mere counterjammer. The next alternative is manual delivery of the results to the municipality or they should probably hire a satellite transmission instead of terrestrial so that the transmission will be vertical,” Quitorio said.

On Monday, the Comelec revealed that it received a report of 5,000 units of cellphone jammers arriving in the country but assured that it is well-prepared to counter such threat.

Malacañang, meanwhile, expressed confidence that the Comelec is ready to respond to all threats that would affect orderly and peaceful elections this May, including the entry of the 5,000 units of cell phone jammers.

Deputy presidential spokesman Gary Olivar said the issue is still under the jurisdiction of the Comelec, noting the poll body has the authority and the ability to address the bulk arrival of the jammers.

“The report is being investigated so I don’t think it rises yet to the level na kailangang aksyunan na ng Pangulo (that needs an action of the President). This is something the Comelec can continue to handle because I believe Comelec has the authority to request for actions to be taken if needed to stop it if it is true that this kind of equipment entered the country,” he said.

The Comelec vowed to step up efforts to protect the system of the automated elections following the alleged arrival of the 5,000 units of cell phone jammers in the country. Considering that the entry of the equipment is a threat to orderly, reliable and honest elections this May, it is on "active form of defense” after it verified the bulk arrival of the jammers.

“I see no reason to doubt Comelec’s ability or readiness to respond to this threat if proven that this is true,” Olivar said.

Meanwhile, Comelec said poll machine supplier Smartmatic will provide the ballot boxes for the May 10 elections.

Comelec Chairman Jose Melo said it decided to also entrust the production of the ballot boxes to Smartmatic “as this is more practical.”

"If the manufacturer of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine is the same manufacturer as of the ballot boxes, then all the responsibilities will be theirs," he said during Monday’s signing of the P243,367,740 million contract with Smartmatic.

In the contract, the consortium will be producing 77,000 ballot boxes which they are expected to finish by April 19. (With a report from Charissa Luci)