Conflicted

It is a done deal. We will be using the PCOS machines for the 2016 elections. The old machines are being rehabilitated and a few thousand new ones will be purchased to avert congestion in some precincts.

With elections coming in just over a year, it is not too early to bring the system for automated election to tiptop shape. The refurbishing of the old machines, the purchase of new ones and the contracts for more modern machines to be tested in some areas in 2016 will be done over the coming months.

The PCOS is familiar technology by now. After two elections using this technology, voters are familiar with how it works. There is no need for a massive training program to prepare the tens of thousands of poll workers who will work the automated electoral system.

The only thing that could possibly get in the way of prompt preparations is an injunction from the Supreme Court. That might be unlikely, but a group of self-styled automated elections experts questioning the PCOS system are not about to give up.

The group TransparentElections.org.ph is planning to again question the contract for the PCOS system before the Supreme Court. They will do this even as the High Court has twice ruled on the validity of the contract in question.

The anticipated petition questioning the use of the PCOS machines is burdened by numerous considerations. Not a single independent foreign election observer questioned the accuracy of the automated count in both the 2010 presidential elections and the 2013 midterm exercise. Not a single ballot has been shown to have been fraudulently reported by the automated system. None of the manual audits conducted showed the automated system to be deficient.

The most important consideration, however, is that the group of self-styled “experts” trying to block the continued use of the PCOS are also trying to peddle an alternative system to replace the PCOS we already bought. That inflicts a serious conflict of interest in what they are trying to do.

Instead of altruistic crusaders for clean and honest elections, the conflicted anti-PCOS group now appears to be nothing more than disgruntled losing bidders.

In a letter sent to the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on the Automated Election System, the group pleads “to be given a chance to present to the JCOC such a system that will only cost the country P4 billion, maybe P5 billion maximum.”

That request to be allowed to make a presentation betrays the commercial interest underpinning this anti-PCOS crusade. The group, these past years, has been trying to convince our elections officials about the merits of their proprietary system. This mongrel system being proposed combines manual counting with automated canvassing.

Any argument for the merits of such a mongrel system is rendered moot by the very law that covers automated elections. The law specifies a fully automated system from the precinct level to the national canvass. The mongrel system being proposed by the anti-PCOS group simply defies the law.

Although the system they propose cannot possibly be legal, the anti-PCOS group is truly persistent. They are taking the chance to displace the system already in place by going for a Court injunction.

The best they could achieve, if they gain any headway in this effort, is to stall the otherwise timely preparations to have the existing automated election system primed to work with optimal efficiency. These peddlers of an alternative, untested and clearly illegal system will not hesitate to be disruptive if only to create an opening to make a sale.

We have invested heavily in the existing technology for automated elections. A drastic shift in technology will be, at the very least, uneconomical. They are asking us to junk perfectly usable technology we already paid for and raise new money to buy newfangled technologies that bring us back halfway to manual elections.

This simply does not make sense.

Chilly

President Aquino, it appears, failed to get that much coveted one-on-one with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

The only time Aquino got close to Xi was when the latter received all the visiting heads of state before the grand summit banquet. Xi offered only a cold handshake and did not even bother to introduce the Filipino leader to his wife.

That fleeting and awkward encounter underscores Beijing’s chilly attitude towards Aquino, an attitude reiterated frequently by blunt and disparaging editorial commentaries in official Chinese channels. Aquino did not even attempt to break the ice by attempting to banter with his Chinese counterpart, as the Japanese prime minister did despite the recent hostile exchange of words between Beijing and Tokyo.

As host of the APEC summit, Xi was undoubtedly a busy man early this week. Notwithstanding, he found time for several one-on-one meetings with preferred heads of state. Surely our diplomats in Beijing exerted all efforts to book a one-on-one between Aquino and Xi, to no avail.

 For months, Aquino has been curtailing the strident words he earlier had for China. Clearly, our diplomatic establishment had prevailed on him to moderate his posture and try to restore the traditional warmth in our bilateral relationship. Recall that last year, Beijing bluntly withdrew an invitation for Aquino to attend a regional meeting.

All the efforts at repair attempted by our diplomatic establishment should have built up to a crescendo at the just concluded APEC meeting. It was for Aquino to break the ice by way of a one-on-one with Xi.

That did not happen. The repair of our bilateral relationship with China will remain on the backburner until we have a new president.