Electronic "dagdag bawas" and the Comelec

Looking at the front page colored photo of The Freeman in its Wednesday publication which headlined "Thousands Throng Comelec to Register" only tells that Filipinos love politics and politics means elections. But those thousands of people who lined up to the Comelec office in order to be able to participate in the coming Presidential elections in 2016 do not know what is happening to the electoral process in this country.

It is a fact that thanks to the Precinct Count Optical Scan  machine, we have clear evidence of a massive electronic "Dagdag Bawas" that was uncovered by Information Technology Professor Alex Muga of Ateneo de Manila. He uncovered the controversial 60-30-10 result of the 2013 mid-term elections.

This is why Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes purposely delayed releasing the source code for the PCOS machines until less than a week before the May 2013 polls so that all political parties could no longer have any more time to process and analyze the commands that the source code would give to the thousands of PCOS machines all throughout the Philippine archipelago.

In the end, all regions in the Philippines registered a very uncanny 60% of the vote going to the Liberal Party (LP), 30% of the vote going to the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) party, and 10% of the vote going to those who neither belonged to both major parties. Prof. Muga printed the 60%-30%-10% into a colored paper and it looked like a well-made t-shirt.

But this uniformity of the vote only proved that the PCOS machine was ordered by the source code to give undue advantage to the LP in what we have called the biggest Dagdag Bawas that was ever slapped in this country. Yes, the Comelec cheated through the source code and what gets my gall is that, there is no investigation on this case as to who rigged the source code?

Let's bring you back to the 2004 presidential elections where one year after the elections a taped conversation (exposed by former director of the National Bureau of Investigation Samuel Ong) surfaced between then Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Comelec Election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano allegedly talking about rigging the results of the elections in his area in Mindanao. This was known as the "Hello Garci" fiasco, which nearly brought down the Arroyo government. It was then that the infamous "Hyatt 10" composed of seven Cabinet Secretaries and three heads of government agencies of the Arroyo Cabinet resigned en masse on July 8, 2005.

While the Arroyo government did not fall or collapse, the Hyatt 10 became the opposition then and today they are part of the Aquino regime. They are Corazon "Dinky" Soliman of the Department of Development and Social Welfare  concurrently Department of Budget and Management  Sec. Florencio Abad who was then DepED Secretary, Cesar Purisima, Finance Secretary and Teresita Deles, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process. Call it strange that these people left the Arroyo Cabinet because of the "Hello Garci" fiasco. Yet these people are strangely mum on the "dagdag bawas."

Until today there has been no formal investigation on this electronic dagdag bawas. However that non-political group dubbed "Center for People Empowerment in Governance and the Automatic Election System   watch have filed in the Supreme Court a Writ of Habeas Data against the Comelec last July 3, 2013. I don't know why it has taken the SC nearly a year to rule on this case. Meanwhile, AES has warned the Comelec not to proceed with its plans to sell those confounded PCOS machines because it is tantamount to selling the evidence linked to a crime. Isn't stealing a crime?

Just think, why is the Comelec spending its P30 million intelligence fund to track down the CenPeg and AES when the people behind these groups are non-political? If truly the Comelec under chairman Sixto Brillantes wants clean and honest elections, he should welcome these watchdogs. So if you're one of the thousands who lined up the other day to register at the Comelec, ask yourself, what good will that do to you when you cannot even be sure whether your vote would be counted or not?

At this point, let me bring you back once more to that historic event in February 1986 when the computer programmers of the Comelec at the Philippine International Convention Center walked out of their respective computer banks because they were ordered to cheat for Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos against then Tita Cory Aquino. That walkout marred the 1986 Snap elections and caused a massive national protest that led to the EDSA Revolt of 1986. The rest is history.

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