Aboard the Titanic / Like an April Fools' day joke

SINGAPORE  I bought a boarding pass on White Star Line’s R.M.S. Titanic. That is, to get on board the exhibition of artifacts of the ill-fated ship in Singapore’s Art Science Museum. At the back of the boarding pass is the name of a passenger Miss Eva Miriam Hart. She was 7 years old who was traveling with her father and mother. The reason they gave for taking the Titanic was to move the family to Winnipeg, Canada “to profit from the construction boom taking place in the region.” It adds that throughout the voyage Eva’s mother Esther was very afraid that something would happen to Titanic. At the end of the tour, I could have found out if Eva survived the Titanic by looking for her name on the wall memorial. I didn’t.

There are many angles from which to view the Titanic tragedy with the help of the artifacts that were painstakingly gathered for the exhibition on its 100th anniversary. I am partial to the tragedy of Titanic as a metaphor. It was not the first or last tragedy with so many lives lost. Nor was it the only demonstration of the power of nature over the puny efforts of man. The makers of the ship had thought that they had made a ship that would be unsinkable. I am partial to those who say it served as a harbinger of change and the coming of modern times. All the elements of the harbinger were crowded into that ship ­ the separation of classes, the luxury in the first class cabins, the pettiness of human nature. Among the passengers were the Guggenheims, Astors, and the actress Dorothy Gibson. They had the money to buy a ticket to a sumptuous appointment on the ship but none to save their lives.

Different reasons have been advanced on the tragedy. A favorite was the power of nature over science. Those on board knew before the crash that they were surrounded by icebergs but could not believe that it would collide head on with a mountain glacier. I like very much the touch of a chamber orchestra playing music until the end.

A recent scientific finding blames the moon. Donald Olson, a Texas State University physicist said “a once-in-many-lifetimes event occurred on January 4, 1912, when the moon and sun lined up in such a way that their gravitational pulls enhanced each other. At the same time, the moon’s closest approach to earth that January was the closest in 1,400 years, and the point of closest approach occurred within six minutes of the full moon. On top of that, the Earth’s closest approach to the sun in a year had happened just the previous day.

This configuration maximized the moon’s tide-raising forces on the Earth’s oceans,” Olson said. “That’s remarkable.”

He adds that the “high tide caused by the bizarre combination of astronomical events would have been enough to dislodge icebergs and give them enough buoyancy to reach the shipping lanes by April.”

This theory may be farfetched and would never have crossed our minds. But there you are. Could it have been the moon that caused the tragedy? That is a lesson on how appearances can mislead.

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The possibility of a failure of election in the May 10 elections was discussed thoroughly. Curiously the discussion focused on violence and events that happen in manual elections. No one suspected it would ever come from the Smartmatic PCOS machines. Neither was it known on who would win in the elections except that fingers were pointed at the Arroyo government. The former president had pushed hard for the automatic electoral system as the answer to accusations of cheating in manual elections. It got everyone’s support.

But instead we had the worse cheating, a kind not seen before in our electoral history. It was an April Fools joke played on us because of an unfounded presumption. It is good to remember this on a day for pranks and practical jokes. The history of Smartmatic can be found in the Internet. No one bothered to look at it.

According to Wikileaks former US Ambassador Kristie Kenney said there was ‘favoritism” in awarding the contract to Smartmatic-PCOS. But why should a Venezuelan firm be so favored in a Philippine election? One explanation is that although it was registered in Venezuela it did business in other countries and suits had been filed including in some US state elections. How did a group in the business of selling electoral systems with the reputation of Smartmatic should have been favored.

“The outcome of the bidding process has raised some concerns about Comelec’s transparency as well as the competence of the selected supplier,” added Kenney in her despatch. She is now US ambassador in Thailand.

Smartmatic won the P11.3-billion contract because of its lowest bid of P7.2 billion. In partnership with local company Total Information Management Corp. (TIM), it supplied 82,200 Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines that were used in the elections. As an insider quipped why shouldn’t it? It made more money so it could afford the low bid.

Do you think it will be any different in 2013 if we allowed the poll body to use the same machines again? More shocking is that the same Comelec chairman is giving the flimsy excuse of a low budget to favor the same system.

Edmundo Casino of Automatic Electoral Watch has continued his campaign for a more serious and thorough investigation of the May 10 elections. As things stand now those in charge of conducting clean elections stole the elections instead through the automated system. In his email to this column he cites three instances that should be investigated and answered: CF Cards found in Cagayan de Oro dumpsite testified by Archbishop Ledesma;

Changing of the erroneous 256 million registered voters to 50.3 million as done in the National Board of Canvassing caught in video footages collated in the TanDem short flick; and why Cotabato election polls showed Colombian votes in the machines. These questions should not be left unanswered or tossed flippantly by the Comelec and its officials. Certainly these will have to be answered satisfactorily before even suggesting that the poll body should use the same machines and electoral system in 2013.

Well the electorate does have a weapon. Why vote? If those in charge of voting cannot guarantee a proper election in 2013 why vote at all? It is that simple.