God give us men a time like this demand!

The future of this country lies in the hands of the voters and the COMELEC.

Josiah Gilbert Holland wrote a beautiful poem and prayer fit for today: God give us men! A time like this demand. Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hand. Men whom the lust of office does not kill; men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; men who possess opinions and a will; men who have honor; men who will not lie; men who can stand before a demagogue and damn his treacherous flatteries without winking! Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog. In public duty, and in private thinking, for while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds, their large professions and their little deeds, mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps, wrong rules the land and waiting justice sleeps.

Who will be the 12 chosen senators? Who will be your chosen congressman, mayor, vice-mayor, governor, vice-governor and eight city councilors of your district? What party list groups will make it?

Have we learned from the lessons in the past? Will we allow officials or candidates who already have a bad reputation to lead us? Will we allow ‘lame-ducks’ to represent us and work for us? Will our vote make a difference at all?

What could possibly go wrong today? How can cheating happen in an automated election? This is the second automated election and yet we seem to be having the same old problems. Initial reports on the final testing and sealing of the PCOS machines conducted by the COMELEC showed problems like ballot rejection, paper jams and ballots smudged with pen ink. In some areas the PCOS machines need to be rebooted several times while some did not have replacement seals for the yellow plastic seals that held the printer and the compact flash bays. There is also the dry run of the transmission to the municipal and central canvassing servers that was not done this time. Jamming transmission is said to be a new form of modern-day cheating.

Giovanni Tapang, PhD., convenor of Kontra Daya, in a report he wrote after the 2010 elections revealed that after the elections an impossible figure of 256 million registered voters in the canvassing servers in the House of Representatives was discovered. The same glitch appeared on election day when the total registered voters appeared to be 153,902,003 more than the population of the country at that time at the national canvassing in the PICC. Sanamagan!

Now that the source code has been presented and safely locked away in a bolt in Bangko Sentral, today’s election can proceed legally. But wait, there may be a second reason why the conduct of the 2013 election poll could still be illegal. Smartmatic is a foreign company and that is a gross legal violation. This issue was apparently raised in 2011 concerning the 2010 elections. But it all seemed moot and academic and was not really pursued. I consider it strange that no one has revived this issue for the 2013 election – at the very least clarify the issue. Smartmatic still has the COMELEC contract. And bringing up this matter to the Supreme Court will not amount to anything right now. It’s election day!

An even more disturbing report on the 2010 elections was discovered in the archived copy of the COMELEC 2010 election website that showed 8,939 PCOS in clustered precincts equivalent to 5 to 9 million votes have gone missing. Possible reasons for this could be: a) No or incomplete electronic devices present, b) no transmission signal, or c) intentional jamming. If these precincts have been identified, it would be interesting for our bayan patrollers or poll watchers to find out if the same precincts will have the same problem this time.

These findings substantiate the rumors that indeed there was such electronic fraud operations then and that it could possibly be repeated this time. It is such a shame that after so many elections we still are not able to address the basic issues.

We may have gone automated but problems such as vote buying, flying voters, terrorizing and harassing voters will stay for as long as the system sucks and power trippers continue to grow in number. What is worse is that these people in power take advantage of our illiterate brothers and sisters in the poor urban and rural areas. The truth is, it is in these areas where cheating will surely take place and will be at its high. A definite scenario would be one person casting that vote for many voters to ensure the winning edge of his ‘big boss’ candidate. Poll watchers or bayan patrollers must have their presence felt in these vulnerable areas.

What happens if election day and post-election tensions trigger widespread violence because of the mayhem during the voting and counting? Will the PNP be able to contain the outbreaks? Will the AFP be called out to enforce or restore order? It has been announced that close to 150,000 PNP officers are being deployed. The AFP should also be ready for any violence that may occur.

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My heart goes out to the thousands of public school teachers who are deputized as ‘board of electoral inspectors’. Not only will they have to deal with the long lines, the heat and the hotheaded folk but also in handling the seemingly complicated or sensitive PCOS machines. The teachers actually lack proper training in the use of these machines; more so, they lack technical support. They will surely need a big dose of Biogesic to maintain some sanity during the period. They should also drink a lot of coffee or energy drink to keep them awake during the tallying of e-votes. In the far-flung areas they probably need to wear bullet-proof jackets in case their lives are threatened by ‘private armies’ or goons.

I hope that the teachers in the polls are well compensated and are given a good insurance coverage. The COMELEC is set to pay P3,000 for each supervising teacher, P1,000 for the final testing and sealing (FTS), and a one-time transportation allowance. They also get leave credits for the time they spend in the polls. Last 2010, issues involving the non-payment of teachers’ allowances went on long after the elections. It was a long and tedious struggle for them to get what was due them. Susmariosep!