MANILA, Philippines?House Speaker Prospero Nograles said Wednesday he plans to file charges of election sabotage against officials of the Commission on Elections, some members of the Board of Election Inspectors and equipment supplier Smartmatic TIM.

In a statement, Nograles, who lost his bid for mayor of Davao City, has offered the House of Representatives as a sanctuary for potential witnesses who were the "least guilty" in alleged electoral fraud.

Nograles said that while the elections were generally credible, reports of automated election fraud from all over the country can no longer be dismissed as minor glitches.

He issued the statement just hours before the House committee on suffrage and electoral reform began its probe on poll irregularities.

Nograles said the "the gross disregard of the Comelec of mandated security requirements is tantamount to gross negligence of duty and culpable direct participation in the grandest election sabotage in history ever perpetrated in this country."

He argued that the Comelec made it easier for the cheating to take place by failing to implement security measures.

Nograles claimed that based on testimony of IT experts, there were at least three ways the votes could have been manipulated in the last election: the use of predetermined results using excess official ballots; use of pre-programmed cf cards that can transmit fake results repeatedly; and the use of jamming devices to block transmission of authentic results and facilitate transmission of manufactured results.

"We cannot allow our people to be hoodwinked by hallelujahs to a totally flawed election process," Nograles said. "We must give back to every Filipino voter the truth of the vote stolen from them."

"I am filing cases against the perpetrators of this nationwide election sabotage and all those whose gross disregard of our election laws and their duty to secure the integrity of elections in the country and this includes the election fraud operators, Smartmatic Inc. and it's sub-contractors, Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs), officials of the National Printing Office (NPO), as well as officials of the Comelec," said Nograles.

Election sabotage under Section 29 of Republic Act 8436 covers acts that result in utilizing, tampering with, destroying and stealing official ballots, election returns and certificates of votes, electronic devices and their components, peripherals and supplies such as the counting machines, memory packs diskettes and receivers and computer sets.

It also includes interfering with, impeding and absconding for the purpose of gain the installation or use of computer counting devices and the processing, storage, generation and transmission of election results, data and information as well as gaining and causing access to using, altering, destroying or disclosing any computer data, program, system software, network or any computer related devices, facilities, hardware or equipment, whether classified or declassified.