Comelec misinterprets parallel manual count

For two weeks the Comelec has been resisting proposals for a parallel manual count (PMC) of ballots. The poll body is doing so out of ignorance — even bad faith and deceit.

Three-dozen info-tech professional associations had thought up the PMC for believable election results. Only one of every two surveyed voters trusts the automated election system and believes the Comelec ready for it. So the IT men studied time-and-motion the manual checking of votes only for President, Vice President and Mayor. The process took only three, four or five hours, depending if clusters consisted of three, four or five precincts (600, 800, 1,000 voters). Such delay before transmitting tallies to canvassers on Election Day would be worth it, given a bridging of the credibility gap. With three teacher-officials manning each of the 76,340 clusters and 1,440 canvass centers, it would cost about P300 million in overtime pay. Again, a far cry from the P700 million that the Comelec was prepared to waste on useless but overpriced ballot secrecy folders. Business and lawyers’ groups liked the idea, and began lobbying with Comelec to adopt it.

The densest Comelec reaction came from Gregorio Larrazabal, commissioner in charge of automation. “We automated because of complaints about the old manual system, so why will we go back to manual?” he told reporters. It’s as if he didn’t listen to explanations that the PMC would cover only three positions most important to ascertain national and local results. While automation generally speeds things up, manual checks guarantee accuracy; that’s why people manually count the cash churned out by ATMs.

Equally dim was the line of spokesman James Jimenez, supposedly a certified genius. “Why only now?” he said of the PMC’s timing. “Why didn’t they propose it years ago when automation was being legislated?” Somebody ought to pound into his skull that nobody, not even IT experts, could have predicted that Comelec would mess up preparations for automation. It was only after Comelec awarded the P7.2 billion contract for precinct count optical scanners did supplier Smartmatic scrap the on-screen vote verification feature. Only now did Comelec fail to test the 82,200 PCOS units. Only now did mock polls show alarmingly high rates of PCOS ballot rejection and transmission crashes, and 5-percent failure of automation one weekend in Hong Kong. Only now did Comelec switch ballot boxes from see-through to opaque, and replace the PCOS built-in ultraviolet mark reader with risky human intervening U/V lamps, and ditch the digital signatures of precinct officials prior to transmission. Only now is it becoming clear that Comelec managers are more concerned with rigging biddings than making automation work. Most of all, only now are political parties learning that a high manager prefers to meet in girlie bars than his office. Had the IT experts been gifted with prophesy, they would have said back then that Comelec cannot be trusted to hold partial automation, let alone full nationwide one.

The rest of the Comelec brass claims there’s no more time to prepare for PMC. But that’s because they hemmed and hawed. The other Sunday, after a week of preliminary talks, the proponents were to meet in Tagaytay where Comelec IT consultant Renato Garcia lives. Dutifully the former all heard morning Mass in order to convene by 4 p.m., at Garcia’s behest. Whereupon the latter left before anything concrete could be discussed since he supposedly had to go to church too. Then followed another deliberately wasted week.

Comelec insists that its random manual audit can take the place of a PMC. Phooey! While the audit will be done in five precincts in each of the 222 congressional districts, it would not reflect the accuracy of the national count. It would not even ascertain the correct counts in all municipalities and cities. “Random selection” could be rigged. Worst of all, the audit will be done only after the proclamation of “winners” — when massive automated cheating already would have been finished.

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Reading about Gloria Arroyo naming her personal manicurist Anita Carpon as P130,000-a-month trustee in the Pag-IBIG Fund, reader John writes: “I was once a casual employee at Pag-IBIG. In order to be regularized, I took the civil service eligibility exam, and passed on first try. Yet for several more years I remained a temporary employee till I got tired of waiting for permanent status. At the Pag-IBIG the rule is nepotism and ‘who’s your backer’.”

Reader R. Guarin suspects that Carpon and Arroyo gardener Armando Macapagal, appointed as Luneta Park Administration deouty, are fronting for secret sponsors: “Persons behind them want to squeeze government of extra cash. The modus operandi is old of small, unqualified persons sharing their pay and perks to powerful backers who also dictate what dirty deals to approve. It’s a perfect way to gain power with no accountability.”

Sources from Pampanga also want the credentials of new Northrail chairman Paulo Hizon checked — especially his high school record. They say he fronts for a presidential kin’s business and land holdings.

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 “All mankind is fast losing the relay of life because the wealthy and mighty hold on to the bottom of riches and power. Their profits are often soaked in blood and will not pass it on except through bloody revolution.” Shafts of Light, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ

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