No new evidence

Commission on Elections chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. has branded ousted Comelec commissioner Augusto Lagman a troublemaker and attention seeker who has nothing new to say.

Lagman and his ragtag group have been marching all over town over Comelec’s upcoming biddings for the supply of additional optical mark recognition (OMR) machines and the repair or upgrade of the existing OMR-anchored Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS), as well as over the participation certain groups in these public biddings. 

Lagman and his fellow Comelec bashers still cannot get over the fact that nobody believes their conspiracy theories of wholesale rigging in the 2010 and 2013 computerized elections using the PCOS machines and Automated Election System (AES)/OMR technology supplied by Smartmatic.

Lagman is the ringleader of the Automated Election System Watch (AES Watch) and the newly launched Citizens for Clean and Credible Elections (C3E), both of which want Smartmatic blacklisted from future elections, claiming AES/PCOS-engineered electoral fraud in the past two polls.

Aside from the competitive bidding or negotiated contract for refurbishing the used 80,000 PCOS machines, the Comelec recently issued invitations for the bidding for the P2.07-billion lease of 23,000 units of additional OMRs (at P90,000 per unit), and for theP30.75-million lease of 410 units of DRE machines (at P75,000 apiece).

Apart from Smartmatic, four more companies namely Indra Sistemas, E-Konek Pilipinas Inc., Election Systems and Software; and Miru Systems Co. Ltd., have expressed interest in joining the bidding.

It is obvious that Lagman has been at the frontlines of the anti-PCOS drive in an 11^th-hour attempt for the Comelec to consider his baby, the Open Election System (OES) which is a combination of manual voting and computerized canvassing.

But Lagman has suffered another setback, this time dealt by senator who backed the current AES system and oppose a return to the manual count.

Minority Leader Vicente Sotto III and Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara gave their thumbs up to the automated system, with Sotto saying that a return to manual counting is a “dangerous” proposal that could lead to massive cheating.

Angara said his experience with the AES in 2013 (during his first run for a Senate seat) was “good,” adding that in lieu of dumping the AES, the nation would do well to just focus on protecting the sanctity of voters’ right to suffrage.

The Comelec and Smartmatic have even found an unlikely ally in Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano, who has pointed out that Smartmatic is already one of the biggest IT companies in the world today and that Smartmatic would not risk the company and its system just for a huge amount that would came from a big-time candidate.

According to Cayetano, there is no doubt that automated is better than manual and that the whole point of going automated is so that the people could be assured that there is no vote shaving he.

If automated is better, then what has Lagman been talking about?

These IT groups under the Lagman-headed umbrella are apparently eyeing lucrative Comelec contracts (Lagman’s OES would cost the government P4-5 billion).

As for the charges raised on Smartmatic’s alleged law violations, all of these are non-issues as these have either been addressed already or happened only in the overly-fertile imagination of PCOS bashers.

There is neither fresh evidence, nor new basis to warrant a different Comelec response this time around as the recycled PCOS/AES-rigging charges by the Lagman gang remain wishful thinking.

Comelec has also dismissed all election-related protests resulting from the failure of losing candidates to show proof of any discrepancy between the PCOS-tallied votes and the post-election recounted votes in the contested areas.

 A better job

True there are rotten eggs, but not all eggs in the basket are rotten.

Amidst all the accusations against the Philippine National Police and our police force regarding corruption, extortion, and bribery, there are good deeds worth mentioning.

Led by Gen. Alan Purisima, the PNP managed to pull off high-profile arrests, syndicate busts, and anti-crime projects, one after another. Its recent successes include the quick resolution of the murder of Zenaida Sison, mother of actress Cherry Pie Picache; the arrest of Ricardo Ayeras, a UN-listed terror suspect, along with several others during “Oplan Sita;” a motorcycle inspection effort designed for crime prevention; and the arrest of Recente “Teng” Padillo, leader of the Padillo kidnap-for-ransom gang.

There are also other activities worth mentioning that the PNP has embarked on, such as the centralization of the Firearms and Explosives Office for more transparency and less susceptibility to corruption, development and implementation of a “scorecard” system for a more accurate record of an officer’s achievements and failures, even regular Zumba classes to ensure the physical fitness of PNP personnel.

The real score

Just a few weeks after being appointed acting health secretary, Janette Garin has shown her true colors.

Among her first acts as acting health secretary was to breach quarantine when she visited Caballo Island where the peacekeepers are quarantined. She even invited AFP chief Gen. Gregorio Catapang Jr. who should have known better than to risk the safety of the entire country.

It’s not the first time that Garin breached quarantine rules and disregarded their own Ebola virus protocol. She did exactly that when one of the peacekeepers was brought out of the island and into the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in Muntinlupa.

That shows inexperience, if not incompetency.

Speculations still abound as to why Health Secretary Enrique Ona went on leave and why Garin was named acting secretary.

By the way Garin has been acting, including her recent reorganization of the Health department, she is showing to all and sundry that she is in charge.

No doubt Garin has the political muscle to accomplish this.  She was a three-term representative of Iloilo and is said to be related to Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla. She could come in handy especially given the Health department’s huge budget.

The post of Health secretary is a very vital one – one that needs to be handled by a respected health professional with vast experience in the field, one who has gained the respect of his peers earned through years of medical practice.

There are those who question Garin’s competency, given that she had very few years of actual medical practice earned in a small provincial hospital.

Then of course there is this lingering question about her alleged involvement in the PDAF scam which it seems our Justice department wants to play down. Her husband too has been implicated in connection with the fertilizer scam.

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