Comelec hostaged by inoperable PCOS

Ask Glenn Defense Marine Asia, the Malaysian waste contractor that services US naval vessels, this. Would it dare to dump tons of toxins in the waters of its homeland’s famed Langkawi Island resort?

It doesn’t have to answer. Parts of the 189,000 liters of kitchen and toilet waste, and 760 liters of used oil and grease that it threw into the sea off Subic, Zambales, somehow will find the way to Malaysia. Only 1,500 miles separate Langkawi and Subic free ports. Seawaters recognize no national borders. Malaysians will have equal chances as Filipinos to savor the coliform and muck that Glenn Defense barges sucked from US warships and spat into the sea.

Glenn Defense says the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority may not investigate the illegal waste dumping. Supposedly, because it services US craft in joint war games, it is answerable to the Commission on the Visiting Forces Agreement. Neither the VFA-Com nor its supervising Department of Foreign Affairs know how to check for pollution. Both have told Glenn Defense to submit itself to the SBMA environment and sanitation office.

Glenn Defense’s Philippine boss claims that the waste was pre-treated in US ships and so cleaner than usual Filipino household effluent. Before anyone dares him to drink even just a cup of his firm’s discharge, he better be reminded: as an ex-Navy chief he more than most knows that environment protection is part of maritime security. The SBMA has found Glenn Defense’s sewage to be beyond acceptable toxicity limits.

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What a tangled web we weave, when at first we seek to deceive. The Comelec is now hostaged by Smartmatic’s 82,000 inoperable voting machines. They lied — and continue to lie — about the capability of the foreign supplier and its automated ballot counters. As in 2010, they will use the machines for the May 2013 election, even if lacking the source code that enables an accurate tally of votes.

The deception began as far back as 2009, under an earlier Comelec chairman. The poll body leased Smartmatic’s 82,000 precinct count optical scanners (PCOS) for the May 2010 balloting, at a staggering P7.2 billion. This was on the pretext that the shady Venezuelan firm owns or possesses the source code.

The code is a crucial computer program. It consists of commands to make the PCOS accept genuine ballots, count the votes, and transmit the tallies to Comelec field and central offices. The Election Automation Act of 2008 and the Comelec-Smartmatic contract of 2009 both require that the source code be deposited with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. Not only that, the code must be made available for examination, by IT experts and political parties, for bugs, worms, trojans, viruses, and other malware.

The lying continues to this day under a new Comelec chairman. Last March the agency decided to purchase the 82,000 leased machines, for use in the May 2013 balloting. Additional price: P1.8 billion. Still, on the pretext that the operating source code is available.

The ruse was unraveled — by Smartmatic itself. Last September it sued in the US its Canadian software provider, Dominion (See Gotcha, 12 Nov. 2012). Dominion was interfering with and stealing its business in the Philippines and two other countries, Smartmatic    cried.    How?   Seven   ways (click http://www.scribd.com/doc/110048368/Smartmatic-Complaint-Vs-Dominion):

(1) improper termination of license agreement;

(2) non-delivery of fully functional technology for the 2010 polls;

(3) denying technical support in that balloting;

(4) refusing to help find alternative uses for the licensed products;

(5) withholding information on the licensed technology;

(6) frustrating Smartmatic’s leasing and sale of the technology; and

(7) failing to place in escrow the required source code, hardware design, and manufacturing information.

Smartmatic’s machines had caught fire and snagged during the Comelec’s bidding test runs in 2009. IT experts had warned that early that Smartmatic was only borrowing Dominion’s PCOS software. The two were competitors: Smartmatic fabricates the direct-recording electronic type, Dominion the PCOS that the Comelec happened to prefer. Weeks before submitting a bid using PCOS, Smartmatic’s website was disparaging such technology as inaccurate, dangerous and therefore likely to cause civil strife.

And yet the Comelec went on and leased Smartmatic’s wares. It also gave Smartmatic P500 million more to supply and deliver ballots, and warehouse the PCOS units.

The IT experts, joined by academics from the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG), continued questioning the PCOS after the May 2010 polls. In September 2010 the Supreme Court ordered the Comelec to open to them the source code, in belated keeping with the automation law and the Smartmatic contract. After all, the software security that Comelec kept invoking before the election had lapsed. But just as they did in 2009, the Comelec and Smartmatic insisted that the source code be examined only under controlled conditions. That is, only in one Comelec computer at the head office, during regular work hours, without using laptops or flash drives. The IT experts had to refuse anew; they didn’t want to be part of the farce. Source code testing normally takes at least four months.

With an untested source code, the “new” Comelec will now proceed to reuse machines in 2013. This, despite its full knowledge of two things. First, that Smartmatic already admitted to not having the all-important enabling program. Second, that Dominion already terminated Smartmatic’s use of its technology.

In the US suit, Smartmatic somehow hints what the Comelec should have done. Narrating its woes to the court, the firm said the election agencies of Mongolia and Puerto Rico bypassed it and directly contracted Dominion upon learning that the latter owned the PCOS software.

But the Comelec already is hostaged. It will use the PCOS — bugs and all. This includes inability to provide several requirements of the automation law. Like, issuing the voter a confirmatory receipt reflecting who he voted for. And, accepting the signatures of the members of the Boards of Election Inspectors and the Boards of Canvassers.

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