Cloud of doubt

When our election was first automated in 2010, I really thought that there will be no more cheating during the voting itself and in the counting and canvassing of the votes. I was ready to believe that our election would be “generally credible and honest” as the Comelec used to say in previous elections which I considered as unfounded and issued purely for “cosmetic” purposes. My remaining doubt then was that cheating might still occur only during the campaign period because there was no way the machine could check vote buying (fraud) and intimidation of voters during that phase of the election (terrorism). At least I thought that with the safeguards provided by the Automated Election Law, the pernicious practice of “dagdag-bawas” during the counting and canvassing would be a thing of the past.

Somehow my belief was bolstered by the results of said election which jibed more or less with the prevailing sentiments and overall expectations of our people. At the time, we really just wanted to get rid of the past administration that had become so unpopular after nine years of rule mainly because of the bad Press picturing it as involved in “lying, cheating and stealing”. And since the results also coincided with the exit polls conducted by the two major survey firms, there was the euphoric feeling that we just had another triumphant people power revolt through the automated election. So the common belief was that we really had the first “successful”   automated election system (AES) through the use of Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines rented from Smartmatic.

And because of this successful automated election, the Comelec even decided to purchase last year, the 82,000 PCOS machines for use in the coming 2013 at a cost of more than 1 billion pesos. The Comelec was able to convince the Supreme Court that the purchase was above board and legal.

Lately however, the Comelec Chief himself admitted that the PCOS machines used in the 2010 elections have no “source code.” The techies have already written so many things about this source code and its importance to the PCOS machines as far as preventing poll fraud is concerned. Since I am not a techie, all I know is that it is the human readable software program, like the “recipe in a cookbook” as the Supreme Court described it in the CenPeg vs Comelec case filed after the 2010 elections. So I will just stick to the automated election system (AES) law.

The law (RA 9369) as amended clearly and categorically provides that the supplier of the PCOS machines should make the source code available to interested parties for proper review. With the admission of the Comelec Chief that the PCOS machines have no source code as affirmed by Smartmatic itself which said that they never had custody of the source code since it is not even the real owner of the technology used in the 2010 elections, it is quite clear that the AES law has been violated. The review of this code has been required by the law precisely as a safeguard in ensuring that the AES is fraud free. But since this was not complied with in the 2010 elections, the results thereof are now under a thick cloud of doubt.

Of course, that cloud cannot be removed now because no protest has been filed questioning the outcome of the presidential election. Even the protest on the vice presidential results will likely be unsuccessful because there is no evidence to show how the machines worked. Indeed most of the Congressional and local election cases have been dismissed for lack of evidence.

So far the only clearest indication of “machinated” cheating is the case in the remote town in Cebu where the PCOS counts greatly vary with manual count. But the Comelec summarily ignored this case by alleging that there must be something wrong with the manual count. In this case it is quite clear again that the Comelec has preferred the use of PCOS machines in violation of law than the court supervised actual manual count.

More alarming is that the Comelec is bent on violating the law again by using the same PCOS machines without the source code for the coming 2013 election. This is really very alarming and even intriguing because the Comelec Chief is a brilliant election lawyer before he was appointed by PNoy. In fact he was the lawyer of PNoy when the latter won the 2010 presidential derby. Knowing him to be not only a brilliant lawyer but also a man of integrity, it is really surprising and confounding that he would expose himself to the possible charge of culpable violation of law which is an impeachable offense. But most confounding yet is that he seems to be cocksure at this stage that such impeachment case will not prosper in the next Congress. In fairness to our Comelec Chief, I really hope that the PCOS machines will have nothing to do with his cockiness, like the speculations now circulating.

With the looming use of the PCOS machines in violation of the AES law for the coming mid-term elections, it would seem that during PNoy’s entire term, there is a dark cloud of doubt that his administration may be functioning as a de facto government. This is really not good for the country.

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