Fence sitters

It’s barely ten months before the May 9, 2016 polls, or 286 days to go before election day. In fact, outgoing President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III will deliver today his valedictory state of the nation address (SONA) to signal the start of transition for the next leader who would be elected by the Filipino voters to succeed him in office.

President Aquino earlier promised to officially announce his anointed successor whom he would support for election into office after delivery of his sixth and last SONA. Most, if not all, of these presidential wannabes would be there to listen to the President’s SONA at the joint opening session today of the 16th Congress at the Batasan Pambansa in Quezon City.

But with only a few months to go, the lead-time of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to prepare for the next presidential elections is getting shorter. There’s no doubt the professional and highly credible Comelec chairman Andres Bautista would do everything in his power to ensure that everything is ready.  

P-Noy is the first-ever President who won through automated election system in May, 2010 when our country shifted to the latest modern automated system. Though attended with the usual birthing pains of the new technology of voting and counting, the election results were generally accepted. And so, the automated election system was adopted in the subsequent mid-term polls in May, 2013.

Yet, up to now, the Comelec has not decided with finality whether to just refurbish, or buy brand new precinct count optical scan (PCOS) – the automated machines that were used during the past two elections in our country. Before President Aquino steps down from office on June 30 next year, the Comelec should do its best to ensure transition takes place without delay.

The latest delay in the Comelec timetable of preparations for next year’s presidential elections was reportedly due the failed bidding for refurbishment of PCOS. One of the new Comelec commissioners – former Mayor Rowena Guanzon – allegedly prevailed upon the Commission en banc to suddenly slash the repair budget by P800 million. Hence, not a single firm joined the bidding.

The reason for arbitrarily cutting the repair budget just days before the bidding remains a mystery up to now. But to poll-watchers closely monitoring Comelec preparations detect more sinister motives: to kill the automated polls and resurrect the reviled manual elections.

The endgame, no doubt, aims to force the hand of the Comelec to reverting anew to the manual election system. Thus, it’s again open season for cheating and election fraud.

For this reason, Congress and credible poll watchdogs like the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and the National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) have made their position clear: they want nothing less than full automated polls.

Not even a hybrid polling system proposed by a former Comelec commissioner-turned-computer-salesman was able to convince civil society groups to junk automated elections. Time is running out but these fence-sitters at the Comelec are not helping any in the conduct of a parallel bidding for the refurbishment of the PCOS machines and lease of some 94,000 optical mark reader machines.

However, vested interest groups disguised as election watchdogs who have been exposed as agents or sellers of polling machines are throwing everything – including the proverbial “kitchen sink” – to stop Comelec from awarding any contract, unless it is to them.

Hence, petition after petition has been filed before the courts questioning Comelec’s decision to either buy more new machines or refurbish old ones.

We taxpayers have paid billions of pesos for these machines. It behooves government to exhaust all means to refurbish them so they will be in good working condition come election time.

Then again, with time running out for the refurbishing option due to Comelec’s own doing, the poll body must decide with finality whether to proceed with the next, albeit more expensive option: purchase new polling machines.?    The usual critics cry against what they claim is the massive cost of new equipment which could exceed P7 billion. However, the impractical and untested systems they propose are even more expensive.

But the worst alternatives carry the heaviest price tag – the specter of no elections that could drive the country to chaos and possible economic tailspin; discredited manual polls that’s prone to cheating; or worse, a constitutional crisis that invites possible military adventurism.

We had the opportunity to discuss the protracted preparations for the conduct of next year’s polls with former Sen. Richard Gordon who authored Republic Act 9369, or the poll automation law.  As guest of our Kapihan sa Manila Bay at Luneta Hotel last week, Gordon noted with concern why there were even talks about reverting to manual elections at this stage.

Gordon reminded P-Noy that the latter’s late mother, former President Corazon Aquino, wanted to leave behind a “legacy” of modernized elections in the country. Gordon ran but lost to P-Noy during the May, 2010 presidential elections.

Saying he was not “sour-graping” for this loss, Gordon rued the law he authored to modernize the country’s elections was not fully implemented by the previous Comelec which refused to give political parties access to the “source code” as required by RA 9369. The source code is the alphanumeric human-readable instructions that dictate how the PCOS machines should operate.

Smartmatic had opposed the release of the source code, citing the risk of it being copied. The source code has been kept in escrow in a tightly secured vault at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas since 2010.

Gordon reiterated, however, his call to the Comelec to allow political parties access to the source code since it “gives the orders that the machines follow,” if only to assuage fears that it could not be used to manipulate the results of the elections by the parties in power.

With time of the essence, Comelec commissioners can’t be fence sitters at a time when history demands decisive, not flip-flopping decisions.

They can’t play safe and take a wait-and-see stance. After all, they were appointed to Comelec for a sole purpose – to ensure that the voice and will of the people are heard and respected. They must decide now before it’s too late.