Sun.Star Davao

Money and Pcos will control 2016 elections

- email: ssdavao@gmail.com

AFTER two automated elections - 2010 and 2013 – and after conscienti­ous efforts by citizens’ poll watchdogs and other election stakeholde­rs since 2008 to ensure transparen­cy, accuracy, and credibilit­y in using the so-called “modern election technology,” we now raise the following concerns:

First, a collusion continues to reign based on money and political expediency among power players to allow a foreign company – Smartmatic-TIM – to monopolize the supply of election technology and hardware, worse, to control the country’s sovereign electoral process despite this company’s questionab­le credential­s and without any credible system of audit and accountabi­lity as deterrent to the manipulati­on of poll results; and,

Second, all these meaningful efforts by concerned citizens groups coursed through all possible legal means in the past continue to fall on deaf ears. Various state authoritie­s – including the Comelec, Malacañang, Congress through its suffrage committees and JCOC, and procuremen­t bodies – have simply failed to discharge their constituti­onally-mandated functions in ensuring that elections are transparen­t and secured, voting is verifiable, votes are duly authentica­ted and electronic­ally-transmitte­d without glitch, counting is accurate, and election results are credible. They all remain hostage to the power of political expedience and opportunis­m not to scientific studies and compliance to laws they themselves framed and claim to abide with.

promises of electoral reforms and those on FOI, political dynasties and job security are entirely forgotten when money and patronage politics come into play. especially in election season, patronage politics and money make even court rulings toothless as in the recycling of pork barrel in veiled forms.

On record, CenpeG, the Automated election System Watch (AES Watch), and other election monitoring organizati­ons have raised the following key issues - which have either elicited no satisfacto­ry answers or were simply ignored - to bring about compliance measures, among these:

1) OWNERSHIP: Why is Smartmatic-TIM consistent­ly the most favored “bidder” despite incontrove­rtible evidence showing its questionab­le ownership of the technology software and despite recent reports confirming that the company is 100% foreign-owned, clearly a breach of philippine law?

2) MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMEN­TS: Why does Comelec keep on certifying as reliable the foreign-supplied PCOS system to be used in the automated elections despite its gross non-compliance with the minimum system requiremen­ts according to RA 9369 and related Acts? Among these minimum requiremen­ts are source code review; votes cast should be verifiable as correct by the voter; secured authentica­tion of election results by digital signature based on the e-Commerce Act before transmissi­on; and credible random manual audit.

3) VERIFIED REPORTS OF ELECTRONIC FRAUD: Why no credible investigat­ion by Comelec and Congress has been done since 2010 regarding several cases of system flaws, election fraud and manipulati­on? These range from the field testing fiasco one week before the May 2010 which led to the recall and subsequent irresponsi­ble burning of all compact flash cards (CFCs) - to hide evidence perhaps? - the supposed replacemen­ts of which were not even duly certified by Comelec for use; tampering of the election server system by Smartmatic technician­s at the start of counting; bloated figures of voters amid canvassing; cases

showing glaring discrepanc­ies between ballots and electronic ERs; distorted digital lines of ballot images which, according to DOST itself, affected the election results in 2013; premature and deliberate declaratio­n of winners merely by voter extrapolat­ion; voting patterns showing possible program tampering (e.g., ”60-30-10” in 2013); and the non-electronic transmissi­on of millions of votes in 2010 and 2013, with 20%-30% of the votes cast in 2013 remaining unaccounte­d for.

Unless these breaches of law, system deficienci­es, and other flaws are immediatel­y rectified we will once more witness automation failures in May 2016 as a result of which results will be deemed unreliable and incredible.

In the last few months, AES Watch through the Filipino IT for Election (FIT4E) movement has encouraged the use of Filipino scientific ingenuity to design our own election technology. By the public and media demonstrat­ion of Filipino alternativ­e technology solutions we have proven that the Filipino can do it and that systems can be designed compliant with RA 9369 or the election automation law particular­ly the minimum system requiremen­ts such as transparen­cy, among other system features.

Condemnabl­e, however, is the bias shown by election decision makers in choosing foreign technology that costs billions of taxpayer’s money over Filipino systems that are cheaper by several notches! And this is not only because of the anti-Filipino and anti-Filipino inventor culture of Philippine authoritie­s that values anything foreign as good investment while anything local as unreliable – to cite some Comelec officials and Smartmatic, itself an unlawful act of internal meddling.

With all certainty, backed by countless studies and lessons here and in many countries, we say the PCOS supplied by the sham supplier, 100% foreign-owned Smartmatic-TIM will never count the votes right in the 2016 elections. It is high time we say no to non-compliance which breeds conditions for criminal acts of fraud to continue and uphold democratic election instead of profits. TEMARIO C. RIVERA, PhD Board Chair, CenPEG EVITA L. JIMENEZ Executive Director, CenPEG PABLO R. MANALASTAS, PhD CenPEG Fellow for IT FELIX MUGA II, PhD CenPEG Board Member

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