Heed warnings about Smartmatic’s AES

COMMISSION on Elections Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. recently said, in effect, that the poll body has no choice but to buy the old precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines that it leased from Smartmatic International Corporation and used in the 2010 elections.

Mr. Brillantes said, in effect, that the P7-billion budget Congress allocated for the Comelec is so small that the poll body is forced to take the Smartmatic offer. He said Comelec had asked Congress for a budget of P10 billion but only P7 billion was given. He even said the congressmen spoke about Smartmatic’s option-to-purchase offer.

“It’s as if they (the congressmen) were telling us to take the option to purchase,” he said.

We believe Chairman Brillantes heard right. The Congress was pushing the Smartmatic PCOS machines to him. After all, most congressmen owe a lot to the defects of these PCOS machines for their personal and their parties’ huge victory in the 2010 election.

The Comelec is really being forced by lack of money to go with Smartmatic again. For it costs about P6 billion to buy or lease new optical reading machines in lieu of the Smartmatic’s PCOS. That would leave only P1 billion for the rest of Comelec’s operations in the next elections—a ludicrously impossible situation.

But if the Comelec takes the Smartmatic’s option-to-purchase deal, it would only have to pay P1.8 billion to the Dutch-venezuelan company. So, there would be P5.2 billion left for Comelec’s operational expenses.

Problems with the option-to-purchase

But problems attend taking Smartmatic’s option-to-purchase. These problems are being raised by Comelec’s most IT savvy commissioner, Mr. Augusto Lagman.

He believes the Comelec would end up violating the Government Procurement Act (R.A. 9184) if it exercises the option-to-purchase, a provision of the 2009 Comelec-smartmatic contract implemented for the 2010 elections. Lagman thinks the law requires the Comelec to call for new bids and Smartmatic should participate in the new bidding. He is right, especially since Smartmatic’s P1.8 billion price is apparently a little higher than the original—owing to inflation and the improvements that the IT firm must make. Comelec is also being charged for the warehousing cost of the 82,000 PCOS machines. Comelec paying a higher price than the original cost stated in the 2009 contract would violate the Government Procurement Act, which requires that the “repeat order” price should be the same or lower than the original price.

Smartmatic PCOS deficiencies

In the 2010 elections, the PCOS machines did not allow for safeguards against fraud in counting and loading the machines with pre-filled ballots. The PCOS machines were supposed to have an ultra-violet-ray capability against fraud that would have rendered transparency and efficient scanning but there was none. So the Comelec had to buy manual UV lamp scanners. Some precincts did not even have these.

Many precincts had such big problems with the PCOS machines that election protests abounded. But protests could not be properly pursued and resolved because Smartmatic’s system left no paper trail to use in verifying the correctness of the counting or the balloting.

The Comelec itself, which at first had sung hosannas to the PCOS and the Smartmatic-tim automated election system, moderated its exaltation of the 2010 elections from “resounding success” to “qualified success.” It did so in the face of bitter complaints by many candidates who were obviously cheated but whose protests could not be given due course because the results of the supposed-to-be foolproof electronic balloting that was not could not be questioned.

Serious and non-partisan academics, IT experts and civil society groups have formed the Automated Election System Watch (AES Watch). It includes the Center for People Empowerment and Governance (CENPEG), the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines-nassa. The Philippine Computer Society, Transparency International-philippines, the Concerned Citizens Movement, Transparentelections.org, AMRSP, Solidarity Philippines, NUSP, Computer Professionals Union, NCCP, Association of Schools and Colleges of Public Administration (ASPAP), and others. AES Watch criticizes the Smartmatic-provided PCOS technology for being non-transparent, non-auditable, full of inaccuracies and for dismally lacking security safeguards.

Fortunately, Chairman Brillantes also told reporters that Smartmatic must fix its system and the PCOS machines before Comelec buys them.

IHAVE balikbayans in town and the first item on their sightseeing agenda is the Banaue Rice Terraces, two thousand years old, world famous and a UN Herittage Site. I had been to Banaue twice before. The first time when I returned home from graduate school in the US utterly embarrassed that I had never seen them. At that time we hired a car and driver from Baguio, brought my mother who had lived in Baguio for decades and had never been there either. Banaue is just an arduous undertaking inland into the Ifugao mountain fastnesses of Luzon. The Halsema Highway is prone to landslides and washed out roads and even in good weather that first time you could see and feel the effects in the rough surfaces, one-way portions and rocks on the road. The next time, 15 years later we went by helicopter. Definitely, Banaue is worth the trip and the effort.

My balikbayan friends and I took 12 hours this time passing via Bulacan, Nueva Ecija and Nueva Vizcaya. It would have been 10 hours if we had not stopped at the Max Fried Chicken Restaurant in Cabanatuan (another item on the balikbayan list) where we arrived half an hour before serving time but were graciously allowed to sit and wait in airconditioned comfort. Next stop was after the Dalton Pass in Sta. Fe, Nueva Vizcaya at Mrs. Gaddi’s Restaurant and Coffee Shop. She had a new (2011) Sanso painting over a large stone fireplace and a huge Aileen Lanuza painting of three women in Maria Clara dresses titled “Three Senioritas” and a lovely set of rattan chairs that were to die for.

Finally we hit Ifugao at dusk passing by Kiangan, where Yamashita came down from the mountains and surrendered in World War II, then Lagawe which is the capital of Ifugao and has the Ifugao State University. Close to 7 pm we ended our trip at the Banaue Hotel run by the Tourist Infrastructure and Enterprise Authority (TIEZA). The last 45 minutes we traveled in darkness and heavy fog. We had an excellent driver and a cheerful guide in a 2011 Starex van that made this trip a safe and successful event for seven of us.

The Banaue Hotel is well-appointed and large, a 1973 government project offering a comfortable place to stay in Banaue after the long trip. It even has a swimming pool but there were no takers among us, too cold and too much to see to linger in it.

The next day we went directly to the viewpoints of the rice terraces. Due to age and other constraints of some of us, it was agreed we would not undertake the extensive trekking opportunities to see other terraces. Julius Velasco was our local guide, grandson of a Bolo Man,