Manual counting
JOHN Wesley in 1748 on elections: “Act as if the whole election depended on your single vote, and as if the whole parliament [and therein the whole nation] on that single person whom you now choose to be a member of it.”
Our memories are short as the beaten caveat essays to every bearer of democracy’s torch, it is often a generation away threatened by loss. Eternal vigilance, the price we must be willing to pay if we are to remain a free nation.
However, the Philippines as a republican experiment, is a dimming perspective obstinate with utilizing the Precinct Count Optical Scanners [PCOS] of Smartmatic-TIM, the “golden boy” of Comelec. Contrived hearings, so a “noisy” group may vent alternative modes to securing the electoral process, served a purpose. To fritter away precious time, setting the stage to paint the country into a corner, with PCOS as the singular system left standing for 2016.
Months before the 2010 presidential elections, I distinctly recollect an event in Podium, a luxury mall on the Ortigas periphery. Receding via escalator to the ground floor, a brother of a high defense official motioned me for coffee. With him was an aide, and a local executive of a Mindanao city. After exchanging pleasantries, the topic shifted to election and politics. This sibling related they had an insider from Smartmatic making incredulous predictions on the PCOS machines. At first blush, they were skeptical. With time, every development foretold found its way into the news, e.g., disabling the electronic signature, etc. The end state of that late day disquisition: the election would be thrown to the highest bidder. Former PCSO Chair Manoling Morato, as well, triangulated initial suspicions into disturbing summations where he was able to quote people and a figure of R1.5B for the highest offices.
The 2013 elections further accentuated suspicions with hanging questions. Assumptions of good faith and a candidate’s popularity could not assuage technical glitches of the opaque voting and counting of PCOS. The most glaring: the Comelec’s re-adjustment of total Senate votes cast and the 60-30-10 percentages [60% for Palace candidates, 30% for opposition, 10% independents] in a consistent pattern of every electoral result. Worrisome are the 82,000 PCOS machines next year. Pushing the buttons of 250 PCOS is enough to subvert the national results to sit another digitized president.
A return to manual counting [even at the precinct level] with hand written Certificates of Canvass distributed to interested parties, before results are electronically sent nationally will retrieve a great portion of our sovereignty. The process transparent and traceable for comparison.
A Comelec mole assures me, “The Commission is always ready for manual back-up 100% nationwide because the ballots are paper [not electronic] which may be counted manually even if all machines fail.”