Union Bank to revise income target upward

Cheat” is a tired word in our country these days, whether used as a verb or a noun. The state of our Comelec and the electoral system that prevails has not helped. In fact, it is my hypothesis and every other decent citizen’s that the Abalos Comelec has desecrated the electoral process. We find ourselves struggling and fighting to make sure we are not cheated out of the candidates we voted for.

Maguindanao is a prime example of what savage cheating is all about. The election ended before it could even begin — the voter “voted” before he or she could even vote! At gunpoint, the people were told to write down the names of the administration candidates, after which the young kids were enlisted to affix their thumb marks. I just read that even cats were used to affix voters’ thumb marks.

This is such an ugly and savage kind of cheating, where young kids are ordered to be cheats so early in their lives; where the kids are brainwashed into believing that this is part of the system — this is the way things are, our country is the way it is, so we’ve got to live with it, kid!

This kind of savage cheating inflicted on the voters in Maguindanao is so ugly and frontal. It is disgusting and shameless. It is so much like using young kids for prostitution that if Mrs. Arroyo is not involved in it, she should raise a hue and cry. This is akin to the increasing number of extra-judicial killings of journalists and activists. The reason she has become suspect within the local scene and abroad is because of the fact that no real, honest effort; no anger has emanated from her, which every decent citizen has displayed.

We are indeed looking at cheats in a big, big way now. These are savage cheats because they tear the heart and soul of our country.

Computer cheats are a different breed. In most cases, they are not out to destroy; by and large, they are out to make money or prove themselves computer geniuses. They want to be able to beat the system and earn their place in history.

Through my studies and readings, I developed insights into how anyone can abuse the Internet. They range from the sublime to the ridiculous. They have made interesting reading for me, and I am amazed at the increasing number and variety of computer cheats in the Internet world today.

Remember UNIVAC 1, one of the first computers on the world telecom scene that I wrote about in the past? Well, let me introduce to you Mr. UNIVAC. It happened in 1952. That’s five and a half decades ago, when I was a student, not aware that a computer already existed in the person of Mr. UNIVAC 1.

Poor old Mr. UNIVAC. With a great deal of hoopla, Walter Cronkite, a world-renowned broadcast journalist then, announced to the television audience that an “electronic brain” was due to make its appearance on Nov. 4, 1952, election night in the US, to predict the new president of the United States.

Programmers had worked for months, entering data to help Mr. UNIVAC make an intelligent forecast. The whole world was watching. Charles Collingwood, a TV announcer, told the viewers: “A few minutes ago, I asked Mr. UNIVAC what his prediction was and he answered he was not ready yet with his predictions.” The truth of the matter was that Mr. UNIVAC had already analyzed the results, with only three million votes counted — a landslide victory for Gen. Dwight Eisenhower with 43 states and 438 electoral votes. Mr. UNIVAC was certain that Adlai Stevenson would only take five states.

Yet the political analysts and pollsters had predicted a very close race, saying that the electronic brain, Mr. UNIVAC, was wrong. In fact, because the analysts were so respected, several attempts were made to bring Mr. UNIVAC’s prediction of a landslide victory closer to the analysts’ predictions of a close race.

At about midnight, with the Eisenhower landslide going full blast, the television station’s chief asked the president of Remington Rand — whom they had hired for the election-night show — to explain.

These people had no confidence in Mr. UNIVAC, a man-made machine. Remington Rand’s president said, by way of explanation: “We should have had nerve enough to believe the machine in the first place. The election night was one of the worst nights I have ever spent in my life.” Eisenhower won 442 electoral votes to Stevenson’s 89. A landslide victory indeed.

As early as the ’50s, a machine had outclassed the human brain! A machine like Mr. UNIVAC could have infallibly predicted the outcome of our elections. No gun-toting scoundrel closing the elections before it could even begin; no savage political operator using young kids to cheat and cheat massively, would be able to outclass Mr. UNIVAC.

The machines we do have that could have been our Mr. UNIVAC are gathering dust because the Comelec contract covering it was declared null and void by the Supreme Court. Instead, they are all kept in storage, lumped together, rusting and wasting away, abandoned and judicially useless.

This is another ignominy the Comelec should be made to answer for. We didn’t have to go the route of this utterly flawed, ugly and sinful, primitive electoral exercise.

These are the cheats, ugly and savage, we are talking about. After all these years, Mr. UNIVAC has grown older and has become wiser. Let’s bring Mr. UNIVAC to the Philippines.

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