What goals are for

Every time I attend meetings and press conferences of the few hardy Filipinos who are bent on reforming elections, I wince a bit. No, not a bit. I wince a lot. I marvel at their persistence. With only each other as the audience they began with small steps never thinking that the small steps would become big in time But they kept going, hoping against hope that maybe a miracle will come to their aid and then they can move on to bigger steps and eventually speak to a wider audience.

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That is the story of the Smartmatic-PCOS issue that was taken up by a group of computer experts and concerned citizens immediately after the May 2010 elections. There was something wrong with the automated electoral system that was used in 2010. But it took time before they could confidently say what it was. The received opinion accepted by most everyone was that the solution to fraudulent elections is to computerize it. Little was known of Smartmatic yet a few clicks on the keyboard would have given them the warning to exercise caution. The peddler of automatic electoral systems faced suits worldwide for unhappy clients.

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Indeed, most Filipinos welcomed an automatic electoral system. It would do away with the tedious manual system that was seen as vulnerable to fraud. Imagine the time that would be saved and guarantee that it would be accurate if the vote went straight from the precinct to the counting machines. There would be no “dagdag-bawas.”

So anyone who disagreed with shifting from the manual to automatic would be cast as a villain. But one man did, a Comelec insider who knew the ins and outs of elections, automated or manual. He was immediately ridiculed and called koala bear by a “renowned” columnist for covering his face. Expectedly not many would have been eager to be associated with the koala bear.

But even as the koala bear disappeared in fear for his life, stories began to leak out about fraud and exactly as the man had spilled out to an unbelieving public.

Machines as instruments of fraud? That was difficult to prove but a few candidates came forward with stories that it was possible. Like the koala bear they too were ridiculed. Talo kasi sila.

But how to explain votes that were counted even before election day, what about votes from Colombia being counted in Mindanao, what about machines found dumped in Antipolo, why were digital signatures removed etc. etc. The list is long but still not enough.

Most of us heeded then Senate President Ponce Enrile who said “you don’t know what can happen if we don’t  have a  president by June.”

Even before Congress acting as the electoral tribunal stopped tabulating, the US ambassador was off to Times Street congratulating the new Philippine president. Other ambassadors followed suit and once again the Smartmatic PCOS was shelved and forgotten.

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But the same hardy few kept nagging. Their stories could not get into mainstream media so it was mostly done on social media, reminding Filipinos that unanswered questions about the machine elections of 2010 should be answered before going into another elections using the same machines and system. But the cries were not heeded.  Indeed everything was done to make sure that Smartmatic would again be “in charge” of Philippine elections.

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It was soon realized that no one had actually studied the source code which was said to have been the basis for the machine count. Dominion was the owner of the source code, not Smartmatic and it was refusing to give it to them because of money problems. Up to election day, Comelec fought back even getting Dominion to come to Manila before the election to say that the electoral system had a source code but there was no time to study it. And so the Smartmatic-PCOS election pulled through with the same unanswered questions of 2010 and without a source code. We never knew what the basis for the machine count was.

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But truth has an uncanny way of showing up. Just as doors were closing and Comelec was cheering that they had their adversary licked, Ado Paglinawan, a US resident who came home to vote found something eerie about the results. These were following a pattern consistently 60-30-10.  He talked with the rest of his group among them mathematics professor at the Ateneo and a former Comelec. Using their skills they found at last the smoking gun. The pattern was the “smoking gun.” This was probably why Comelec devised every excuse for the source code not being available.

The machines would have to be instructed (through the source code) to obey the 60-30 -10 formula.

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There was an astounding moment during the counting when PPCRV came up with results way ahead of the official counting. There was a mistake and the former Ambassador to the Vatican Tita de Villa apologized.  This group had taken the place of Namfrel to guard the elections through a random manual audit (RMA). It is now known it wasn’t random after all with the Comelec selecting 234 priority cities and municipalities and 234 contingency areas where the manual counts were to be conducted to satisfy public demand for transparency. It had the gall to release its audit and say only some will be released to the public.

As one of the convenors said, “the manual audit is against the automated transmission that we have already proven to have been corrupted into a 60-30-10 preprogrammed default?”

How can PPCRV be the guardian of transparent elections when it is apparently colluding with the Comelec?

So there is no escaping the charge. Tanggulang Demokrasya and Bagumbayan will have to include Ambassador de Villa as a respondent in the corruption case to be filed on Wednesday.

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The pre-programmed PCOS genie is out of the lamp and it will haunt all those who thought they could get away with it. This is the importance of having a goal and sticking to it.  At the time the civic groups began working on their goal for transparent elections, it was hardly expected that they could overcome both the public’s indifference and the government’s insouciance.

It is a lesson yet again that it does not matter if a large goal cannot be achieved or at least seemingly impossible to achieve. The goal generates its own reasons and eventually gives meaning to the Filipinos’ desire for a “daang matuwid.”