Didn't the Comelec also violated poll laws?

Last Tuesday there was a forum at the UP-ITTC, Vidal A. Tan Hall in UP Diliman, Quezon City dubbed “A Dialogue Toward A Voter-Friendly & Glitch-Free 2013 Automated Elections” which I would have loved to attend, but unfortunately we’re in the thick of Christmas celebrations I won’t be taking trips to Manila until after the Holidays.

What struck me with that invitation letter for that forum was the way it came up with its foreword which said, “There are no complete election results and still no completed Comelec Report to the President and Congress of the May 2010 elections – 513 days before the next polls; the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee (JCOC) has not convened to assess the 2010 automated election system per provision in the Poll Automation Law; the new Advisory Council holding a vendors’ demo with still unclear guidelines on the performance of the technology used in the May 2010 elections; and Smartmatic is being allowed to bid again for the 2013 elections despite its 2010 election program’s being officially declared as filled with bugs and errors and failing to deliver according to the contract’s terms of reference and provisions in the law. The country needs quality preparation for poll automation NOW. More transparency and greater participation from the Filipino IT community and other election stakeholders for the appropriate, voter-friendly, glitch-free and secure automated election system.”

Those who were invited to that dialogue were Comelec Commissioners led by Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr., members of the Comelec Advisory Council (CAC), representatives of the Senate and House committee on electoral reforms, political parties and partylist groups and conveners of AES Watch like CENPEG, Namfrel, Transparency International-Phils, Philippine Computer Society Transparent Elections.org.ph, UP-ITTC, CPU, MGG, CBCP and NASSA.

Aren’t you alarmed that almost two years after the so-called successful automated polls, as the foreword says, “There are no complete election results and still no completed Comelec Report to the President and Congress of the May 2010 elections - 513 days before the next polls; the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee (JCOC) has not convened to assess the 2010 automated election system per provision in the Poll Automation Law.” Wait-a-minute! Isn’t this a violation of Comelec law, after all the 2010 automated election system has this as a provision in the law?

Here’s the Comelec, slapping a charge of election sabotage against former Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) and yet, they too have violated its own laws? This situation truly reminds me of that dramatic passage in Scripture when the Jews caught a woman in adultery and brought her before our Lord Jesus Christ before they would exact the punishment of stoning against the woman… But the Lord stooped down and scribbled something on the ground then said to her accusers, “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone!” If you ask me the officialdom of the Comelec are nothing but hypocrites for they too have failed the Filipino people.

Perhaps you voters out there did not realize that certain voting processes were not followed by the Comelec in the May 2010 elections and were even disabled and worse of all… covered up! When you voted, you never knew whether your vote cast was being read by the PCOS machine simply because the PCOS ballot scanning feature was disabled and the so-called substitute scanners were not used at all. The Comelec or Smartmatic obviously disabled the digital signatures which could have traced your vote.

Comelec issued Resolution no. 8786 on March 4, 2010 that no longer required the use of digital signatures. That resolution contravened Republic Act No. 9369 Election Law which states “The election returns transmitted electronically and digitally signed shall be considered as official election results and shall be used as the basis for the canvassing of votes and the proclamation of a candidate.”

That Comelec resolution resulted to election returns with No digital signatures on the statements of votes in the municipalities, cities, provinces and on the national polls. All certificates of canvass have no digital signatures. without digital signatures how could the Board of Canvassers in the municipality, city, province and national know which PCOS machine was transmitting to their servers? Remember that incident right after the election of 60 PCOS machines and two Broadband Global Area Networks discovered in the house of a Smartmatic technician in Antipolo? Whatever happened to that case were we asked whether those PCOS machines transmitting election results? If GMA is under house arrest for the 2007 election fraud, who then should we send to jail for the automated electoral fraud of the 2010 elections?

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