Guarding the vote

At least three truckloads of ballots were transported yesterday from the National Printing Office (NPO) in Quezon City to the Philpost Distribution Center in Del Pan, Manila.

Comelec officials explained that the ballots had to be transferred because the storage area at the NPO was not big enough and the ballots could not be stacked too high.

But the movement alarmed certain political parties, whose representatives lamented that they were only belatedly informed about the transfer and could not immediately send observers to ensure that the documents would not be tampered with along the way.

Call those party representatives praning, or paranoid, but the track record of this administration does not inspire confidence in ensuring the credibility of elections.

Even the integrity of Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Jose Melo, I’m sorry to say, is starting to become suspect. At the very least, Melo’s critics say, he cannot rein in or is clueless about the activities of certain unscrupulous Comelec officials. At worst, critics say he has lost control of the automation process, which is now at the complete mercy of the private consortium Smartmatic-TIM.

The ultraviolet security mark on each ballot, for example, will no longer be read by the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine, but by a manual scanner for verification. Comelec officials have explained that because of the rush in the printing of ballots and the huge volume, the ultraviolet mark was smudged in several documents. We don’t know if the manual scanners can distinguish between authentic and fake ballots.

Yesterday there were reports that 50 percent of the ballots would be designed for manual voting.

Poll watchers of political parties and broadcasting networks are also complaining that the Comelec has refused to allow the review of the source codes – considered the mechanical brains – to be installed in the PCOS machines.

In the most solemn week of Christendom, there is no respite from political intrigue. Yesterday text messages spread that newly recycled Executive Secretary Leandro Mendoza, one of the originals in this administration, wanted to quit because he did not want to participate in a poll sabotage plot being hatched by his predecessor, Eduardo Ermita, and Mindanao Development Authority chief Jesus Dureza together with President Arroyo. Ermita, according to the text messages, was the one who cooked up the rebellion case that was designed to be dismissed against staunch Arroyo ally Andal Ampatuan Sr. Malacañang laughed off the story, but Mendoza could not be reached for comment.

Mendoza, who signed the broadband deal with ZTE, might have found a graceful way out of a sinking ship. But if the story is true, then there’s even more reason for all concerned sectors to risk being called praning in their zeal to guard the vote.

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This Holy Week, when rival political camps are supposed to observe a ceasefire (we’re still waiting for it), they can focus on a common concern, which is ensuring the credibility of the May 10 elections.

Whoever wins the presidency will find it tough to govern or deliver on any campaign promise if there are questions about the legitimacy of his mandate on the scale of the “Hello, Garci” scandal.

We’ve had nine years of political instability arising from such questions. The elections in May are supposed to herald change. If the next six years will give us nothing but more of the same, by the time 2016 rolls around, our country would have been overtaken by Vietnam, Cambodia, and perhaps even by Southeast Asian basket case Myanmar in terms of economic development.

Filipinos voters can live with whoever wins the presidency as long as the contest is seen to be relatively clean.

The government has announced that foreign observers are welcome during the elections. The Americans and Brits, among others, are expected to field observers.

But if the Comelec had really wanted the elections to be under the watchful eye of the international community, it could have asked the European Union (EU) last year to send a delegation of observers.

The EU, when it sends out such teams, considers it serious business. The typical delegation is large, with the members having expertise in the particular type of voting system that is expected to be used. EU observers do not parachute into a country for a few days or even weeks; they stay for several months, until after the votes are counted. This requires a hefty budget, of which the approval period ended late last year.

With all the conflict areas in the world demanding international assistance, we might not have qualified for that kind of observer team. As some diplomats have commented, the Philippines is not Iraq or Afghanistan.

But we might have stood a chance after the Maguindanao massacre on Nov. 23 – the worst election-related violence in this country, which highlighted all the problems besetting the conduct of free elections in our weak democracy.

A lawyers’ group wrote Melo a letter last year, suggesting that the Comelec ask the EU for such an observer team. The Comelec ignored the suggestion.

In the absence of large delegations of international observers, we are on our own.

The elections may be fully automated, with the Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM promising that the results will be known within a day or three at most. But Congress will proclaim the official winners only at the end of May – about three weeks later.

Until then, broadcasting networks will not receive an official tally from the Comelec, and will be left to conduct their own count based on data supplied by the machines. Supposedly, the networks will get the same data at the same time as the Comelec and accredited political parties.

Some broadcasting executives are studying how they can deliver the results to the public as quickly and accurately as possible, depriving anyone of opportunities to manipulate the results during that three-week wait.

The public cannot depend on government pronouncements that the country’s first fully automated elections will be honest, orderly and peaceful. In this exercise, a dose of paranoia can be good for the country’s health.