Still on the PCSO debate

The 16th Congress opens on Monday, amid high expectations that the new batch of legislators will be doing a better job than their predecessors.

This, although questions are still raised by certain sectors on whether Comelec did right by  using what critics call “troubled” Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines, thus raising doubts on the validity of the election of winners now sitting in Congress. These critics believe violations have been made in the use of the machines, and that ma-nual counting would have been more dependable. They say the “60-30-10” pattern in the election results indicates automated cheating.

There are those, of course — winners and observers — who take the opposite view in the automated election result debate. They believe they are right in saying that critics should wonder how for the first time ever, election results in all levels were known in record time.  It’s true that in the past, we were made to wait for weeks — or even more than a month — to know who made it in the ‘Magic 12’ of  the electoral exercise.

In view of this, they congratulate Comelec Chairman Sixto Brilliantes and Smartmatic Philippines “for the clear success of the automation of the electoral exercise.”

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brilliantes declared that the manual audit showed that the accuracy level of the election results was almost perfect.

The most vocal of the critics of the conduct by Comelec in the canvassing of the votes in the May 13, 2013 election is former Sen. Richard Gordon, who has urged the Philip-pine Constitution Association (Philconsa) to take  “proactive measures to prosecute officials responsible for violating and defying the provisions of the election law following the reported failure of the Comelec as a constitutional body to meet the standards for transparency and accountability in the conduct of the May 2013 polls.”

Gordon further stressed that Philconsa, Bagumbayan (a political party the Gordon heads), AES (Automated Election System) Watch and other citizen watch groups should join hands and be at the forefront of the battle “to save our democracy by preventing a repeat of the evils that the Comelec has foisted on the people.” He added that those in power to protect the reigning regime are using Comelec.”

Critics point to the alleged rigging of votes as evidenced in the 60-30-10-pattern election results. This equation shows the administration-backed Team PNoy enjoying a 60 percent advantage, the opposition United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) coming in second at 30 percent and the independent candidates picking up the remaining 10 percent.

Presidential spokesmsan Edwin Lacierda brushed aside allegations of fraud in the May 13 national elections. He said there was synchronized national and local elections, not all the administration candidates won. “Isn’t that proof enough that the election was credible? If we wanted, we would have preferred that we sweep the entire slate, but we did not. … It’s very clear that the people have spoken . . have accepted the votes. . . have accepted the 12 elected senators as legitimately elected by the. So the people have spoken, and that’s it.”

Admittedly, say Brilliantes and Flores, there were isolated and minor glitches in the computerized voting system, but on the whole, the entire process was undeniably satisfactory.

Let’s face it. We now live in a digital world, and sad to say, the Philippines is still a laggard in technological advances. If we cannot even computerize our political and bureaucratic systems, we cannot expect any better things to come in the near and distant future.

Going back to the 60-30-10 issues, the political losers were quick to call it a deception tool by their opponents who performed strongly at the polls. They claim there was a conspiracy to undermine the people’s will.

Filipino expatriate Michael Purugganan, dean of science at the New York University, disagreed with such observation. “No conspiracy here – just mathematics at work,” he said in an article entitled “What the 60-30-10 pattern really tell us.”

“The pattern is easily explained depending on what data you were looking at by what we call the law of large numbers. As canvass upon canvass reported larger and larger voter results (in the millions), then the percentages of votes for

Team PNoy should not change very much with its new canvass,” Purugganan pointed out.

The church-based advocacy group Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) indicated that there was ‘no clear evidence of a suspicious pattern in the latest senatorial elections.

PPCRV information technology director Rommel Bernardo said the proportion of votes for the political groups “cluster around identifiable percentage ranges” rather than fixed points.

“If one were to consider the values observed for each political group at each geographical subdivision, there is no clear evidence that the data for each group consistently clusters tightly around a single number as one moves from the national level to the regional and provincial levels,” Bernardo said.

Gordon is the author of Republic Act 9369 or the Amended Automated Elections Systems Law, which, he told Philconsa officers and members, was aimed to end the vicious cycle of electoral fraud by dismantling the manual cheating apparatus, like the “dagdag-bawas.”

However, he said, due to the poll body’s failure to implement strict provisions of the law to safeguard the whole process “ it instead devised an automated cheating mechan-ism.”

Gordon cited safeguards the Comelec, he said, “deliberately set aside.” I asked Comelec to respond to the former senator’s charges.  On their having been no international cer-tification of the automated elections system, the answer: The AES had been certified by SLI. On there being no review, testing and certification of the Source Code, the an-swer: The Source Code review was ongoing since May 9, 2013. That there were no digital signatures, the answer: The AES is capable of using digital signatures.

On there being no Voter Verified Paper Audit and Verification, the answer: “The paper ballot is actually the best Voter Verified Audit and Verification. In case of an issue, all the authorities need to do is look at the ballot itself and compare it with the ER. It is even better than a receipt that comes out of the voting machine, which could ostensibly show a voter how he voted but is actually no guarantee that what is printed on it would be the votes actually recorded in the machine. Who’s to say? The paper ballot still is the best record of one’s vote.”

Audit (RMA) the answer: There was an RMA conducted. In fact, the results of the audit showed 99.97 per cent accuracy.

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The Philippine Constitution Association is advocating   the amendment of Republic Act No. 8436 mandating automated elections, remarked Chairman and CEO Manuel M.  Lazaro, after noting “the dimensional and pernicious fallouts generated by the use of PCOS machines that created serious doubts and concerns whether some candidates proclaimed elected were truly the choice of the voters or the choice of the manipulated PCOS machines.”
Philconsa officers agreeing with Lazaro on the need to amend RA 8436 are former Congresswoman Annie Susano, former USEC Hermenegildo C. Dumlao, Dean Froilan Bacungan, Vice-President Manolo Gorospe, Deputy Secretary General Romulo Lumuaig, and VP for NCR Ismael A. Mathay Jr., Gov. Carmencita Aguilar and VP for Wom-en’s Group Rafaelita R. Gono.

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