Golez: We still don't think 'digital'

MANILA, Philippines - Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez lamented yesterday that most people still adopt a manual mindset as some lawmakers and losing candidates continue to complain of poll fraud after the country conducted historic automated elections last May 10.

“We have to think digital and do away with the manual mindset. The soft and hard copies are one and the same,” Golez said during the hearing of the House committee on suffrage and electoral reforms that is investigating allegations of hi-tech poll fraud.

He highlighted the issue before the panel of Makati Rep. Teddyboy Locsin after losing candidates have been pressing the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and its computer supplier Smartmatic to produce election results from the precinct to the provincial levels.

“This is the digital age and adopting the AES (automated election system) is our signal that we have arrived in the digital age in our political processes. What people don’t understand is that the hard copy is based on and a product of the soft, digital copy,” Golez stressed.

Questions raised in the public hearings have been so repetitions of past inquiries that Locsin had been answering the queries on behalf of Smartmatic executives Cesar Flores and Heider Garcia, who have time and again been explaining the same issues to losing candidates.

“That the data can be verified from the soft copy, from a CD (compact disc) or a hard disk or server, instead of printing tons of paper. That is what I call the hard copy mindset when the soft copy is as good or better,” the re-elected congressman pointed out.

“Even with the long debated automatic election system, people still ask for the hard copy when there is already the soft copy. It (digital, soft copy) is faster, paperless, cheaper and more environment-friendly,” Golez explained.

“This is the reason why we have a Jurassic tally board where these guys are sticking figures when we can do that in an electronic board on a wide screen. We should fully automate, including canvassing. Hopefully, in the next elections,” he told The STAR.

Flores had assured Alagad Rep. Rodante Marcoleta that contrary to allegations, no premature transmission took place, simply because the main Comelec server has a “firewall” where it will not accept any data sent before 7 p.m. of May 10, the election day.

“There were no premature transmissions. The system won’t allow that,” said Flores, a Venezuelan citizen. Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal confirmed it, saying that the most important thing is that the transmission of data was secured, and was done once.

Comelec executive director Jose Tolentino said he is “very sure” that what is reflected in the certificates of canvass have been derived fully from either the election returns or the statement of votes.

Larrazabal stressed that not one piece of the poll body’s 50 million ballots have been leaked to any party, for purposes other than the voting itself.

“No one, nobody could claim that he had in his possession a legitimate ballot. Not one in the entire Philippines. We have been that strict,” said Larrazabal, who is the commissioner in charge of the automated polls.

Meanwhile, The Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) said that even if all the winners in the May 10 polls have been proclaimed, the Comelec should still answer all the issues against the AES. 

“There remain security issues related to the automated election and until these are plugged, doubts will linger on the credibility of poll results,” noted CenPEG in a statement.

The group said the Comelec is still liable for various issues of poll irregularities.

Among these are the configuration of the compact flash cards, date security issues of the PCOS machines and null votes.

CenPEG consultant for information Lito Averia said the “demonstration of the AES by Smartmatic, albeit in a controlled environment, may have addressed detailed issues raised during the committee hearings, but some questions still remain unanswered.    

“Security breaches and data tampering can still occur with the participation of insiders who know the keys (passwords) and have intimate knowledge of a system,” Averia maintained.   – With Sheila Crisostomo, Mayen Jaymalin