Unfortunate developments

Long before and even during the voting in last week’s mid-term election, there were already some warnings and ominous signs placing its credibility in doubt. In fact some IT experts and concerned citizens repeatedly aired their apprehensions that the election might result in failure to reflect the real wishes and actual choices of the voters if the same precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines used last 2010 election, would be used again. They even made several suggestions on how to ensure the reliability of the machine and the credibility of the count, more particularly the holding of a parallel manual count and the strict compliance with the safety measures specified by law.

Unfortunately, the Comelec Chief disregarded the suggestions and insisted on the use of the machines purchased at the cost of P1.8 billion after already spending about P8 billion for their use in the 2010 presidential election. He claimed that the Comelec was “99.99% ready” for the election with the use of these machines. He even confidently announced that the winners in the senatorial election will be proclaimed within 48 hours after the close of the voting.

The people really tried their best to presume and to give the benefit of the doubt to the Comelec Chief and his favorite PCOS machines when they went to the polls last week.  They continue to do so after the closing of the polls when the Comelec Chief proudly claimed that “this is the best election we ever had”. Doubts however started creeping in when he convened the Comelec as the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC), but postponed the canvassing of the election returns until the following day allegedly because “they were already tired and sleepy”.

Indeed his questionable decisions and irregular moves after the voting and during the canvassing just about dissipated the presumption and the benefit of the doubt given him by the people. Suspicions and doubts further crept in and heightened when the NBOC he headed hastily proclaimed last Thursday, the top six winners of the senatorial race even if only 72 of the 304 certificates of canvass (COCs) have been tabulated. This was aggravated when he ordered the suspension of the advanced counting being done through the transparency servers by the PPCRV, the accredited citizens’ election watchdog. This move was followed by the piecemeal proclamation of the next three winners on Friday and the last three on Saturday even as the canvassing was not yet completed due to transmission delays blamed on the Telcos, not the PCOS.

These premature and hasty moves really gave the arch critics of the Comelec Chief enough grounds to suspect and speculate about possible manipulation of the results to assure a 9-3 victory for the Team PNoy versus UNA. This speculation intensified when there has been no change in this ratio of winners since the start of the counting until the final proclamation.

But over and above this speculation are the obvious violations of the Automated Election Law (RA 9369) especially on the safeguards assuring the credibility of the results churned out by the PCOS.

First and foremost in this regard, is the lack of review of the much talked about PCOS source code by interested political parties and/or groups. The source code and its review is required by Section 12 of the law for detecting possible technical mistakes that may cause errors in the result and for preventing possible manipulation of the results.

The second violation is the lack of report on the results of the random manual audit (RMA) of two clustered precincts in each legislative district. According to Section 29 of RA 9369, such report should be submitted before the proclamation of winners. But up to now, nothing has been mentioned by the Comelec about their submission.

The third violation refers to the digital signatures of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) on the election returns (ERs) transmitted to the Comelec for canvassing. These ERs with the digital signatures are the legal bases for the proclamation of winners. It is therefore quite surprising and perplexing why the Comelec itself has dispensed with them.

Even if the minor glitches and mechanical errors will not really affect the final count and the overall outcome of this election especially on the national level, these legal infractions undoubtedly taint the election results and the proclamation of the winners that may even cause bitter division and prolonged legal battles. This is rather unfortunate especially because the winners themselves appear to be blameless as far as those infractions are concerned.

But more unfortunate is that they could have been avoided if the Comelec Chief just tried to be more open and to look more deeply into the validity of the points raised by these “critics” instead of out-rightly dismissing them as mere attempts to sabotage the election with threats of resigning and filing law suits. This is unfortunate indeed because the period after every election is a golden opportunity to forge unity among the people so that everybody could just look forward and work together for the common good. We seem to have lost that opportunity now.

Even then, we should still hope and pray that the electorate and the entire citizenry learn valuable lessons in the last election so that our country may eventually be free of trapos and political dynasties which are the main reasons for the bad governance and poverty in the land.

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