Many questions, fears and concerns have been raised in the last few months over the controversial automation of the May 2010 elections. Experts and non-experts alike are raising doubts about the integrity of the system, which the Commission on Elections has adopted, as well as its adherence to the law on automation passed by Congress.
There are legitimate fears about the source code for the Precinct Counting Optical Scanners (PCOS), a tightly-guarded secret known only to the foreign company to which the COMELEC awarded the automation contract. That source code, which is the set of instructions installed in the machine to ensure the security of the count, canvass and electronic transmission of the results, must be released to and reviewed by PPCRV, NAMFREL, media quick-count organizations and the political parties soonest, so that doubts about manipulated results can be allayed.
The haphazard manner by which the COMELEC tested and finally awarded the contract is now becoming apparent, from a strange failure to do adequate time-and-motion studies to an awful ratio of two specially-designed felt tip pens per voting precinct, with little consideration for normal election day lapses and occurrences, among others. The PCOS machines are susceptible to jamming, not the least reason for which is an official ballot that is long and narrow, with several hundred names printed in small font. Even the printing of these official ballots, with one set of names per municipality, is fraught with security concerns.
The absence of adequate safeguards gives rise to credible fears that the proposed automated counting and canvass would be akin to having thousands of faceless and voice-less Garcis manipulating the critical elections of 2010.
We, the Former Senior Government Officials (FSGO), are most certainly for electoral reforms. We are not averse to the modernization or automation of the canvass of votes, the area where manipulation of results has in the past been done with utmost impunity. But in a larger sense, technology must not, and cannot be allowed to deprive a people of their fundamental right to genuinely free and honest choices.
The fears raised by several sectors in the legal and IT communities mirror a general distrust not only in the COMELEC as the guardian of the democratic vote, but also in the institutions of government that have been so stripped of credibility by years and years of assault and abuse.
Indeed, under a president that cannot be trusted, even the validity of supposed electoral reforms becomes the object of doubt and suspicion. More so when the process lacks transparency and the implementers lack adequate competence and possess little credibility.
Because trust is so low on those who govern our nation, and the selected automated system has not been adequately tested, our first proposal is to postpone use of this controversial system until the barangay elections or even the mid-term elections of 2013, not in the 2010 national election. If that alternative does not find popular support, the best compromise seems to be automating only the canvassing of election returns, and leaving ballots to still be written out by the voter. Such partial automation continues to allow the public to monitor manual counting at the precinct level while speeding up canvass of the votes at succeeding levels, the parts of the election process most susceptible to cheating and to delays.
There is no overstating the need to ensure that the 2010 elections must be clean, honest and orderly, and the results of these should be acceptable to candidates and most important, to the sovereign electorate. The forthcoming elections are a watershed in the overwhelming desire to perfect the systems of democratic order. If there should be chaos on election day, and anarchy in the canvass of votes, the resulting failure of elections could be the last straw that would break the camel’s back, and lead to the complete disintegration of the democracy we all hold dear.
We pray to the Almighty that this shall not come to pass, even as we call on our people to be ever-vigilant, and appeal to the Supreme Court to be the true guardians of the most sacrosanct foundation of our democracy.
