CBCP to Comelec: Restore security measures

For our first presentation for the Year 2016 in our talk show “Straight from the Sky,” my fellow authors of the coffee table book “The War in Cebu,” namely, Dr. Resil Mojares and Prof. Jobers Bersales, will talk about this very successful coffee table book which was formally launched last Dec. 8th at the Ayala Activity Center in what I dubbed as the most successful book launched in Cebu.

It was quite a fitting date to launch this book on Dec. 8th because it was on that day 74 years ago when the Philippines was drawn into the war between the United States and Japan. With the Philippines being under the US Commonwealth, a few hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese planes from Taiwan flew and bombed Sangley Point in Cavite.

For us in Cebu, war became a reality when on Dec.17, 1941 the Compañia Maritima passenger vessel the S.S. Corregidor struck a mine off the island of Corregidor and broke into two and sank rapidly. My uncle, Benjamin Avila was one of the fatalities. PT-Boats 34, 41, and 42 which later figured in the escape of Gen. Douglas MacArthur were able to save some 700 passengers. It was the last ship bound for Cebu then off to Australia. It was the biggest maritime disaster in the Philippines where nearly a thousand passengers perished but because of the war, there was no formal investigation as to why it struck a mine off Manila Bay.

For many years there were a few books written about Cebu during World War II. Perhaps the first and the most comprehensive book was written by my mother’s brother, Col. Manuel F. Segura, called “Tabunan” and “The Koga Papers.” Jobers Bersales would call his book the seminal book with which we were able to put up this coffee table book “The War in Cebu.”

Perhaps what is most significant in having this coffee table book finally published is that very few historians even cared to consider Cebu City during World War II as one of the most destroyed cities in Asia. There are a lot of photographs of the destruction of Manila and publications printed to show how destructive was the fight between the Americans and the Japanese Forces.

But with the book “The War in Cebu,” it is now officially on record for all to see that Cebu City was 90% destroyed. Again, this was also due to the bombings of US B-24 Liberators who thought that the Japanese had dug inside the city for a last ditch fight. But later we would learn that the first line of defense by the Japanese in Cebu City was in Gochan Hill, which took nearly three days for the Americal Division to neutralize. But the fiercest battles were up in Babag Ridge, which was even more fierce than Guadalcanal.

So watch this interesting talk on how noted authors Dr. Resil Mojares and Prof. Jobers Bersales were able to conceptualize and piece together the book “The War in Cebu” published by the University of San Carlos (USC) Press. So watch this very interesting show on SkyCable’s channel 61 at 8:00 tonight with replays on Wednesday and Saturday same time and channel. We also have replays on MyTV’s channel 30 at 9:00 tonight and at 7:00AM and 9:00PM respectively on Wednesday and Friday.

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At least for our first column of the Year 2016, we have some good news that the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines has finally joined our advocacy for clean and honest elections and have joined us in our call to the Commission on Elections to restore four major security features that were callously and blatantly removed from the Precinct Count Optical Scan in the 2010 and 2013 elections, which is why we openly declared that these two national elections were marred by electronic Dagdag Bawas! 

Last Thursday, CBCP president and Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas said, “The Comelec should diligently implement the security measures mandated by the Automated Election Law to ensure credible and honest elections in 2016. The credibility of the elections and the stability of our democracy are at risk if the security and sanctity of every ballot is compromised.” It took us nearly five years before finally the CBCP noticed that we were correct in our assessment. But then our democracy has been severely damaged because people who shouldn’t be holding office are now in power and didn’t care to have these charges of electoral fraud investigated.

The security features that were removed is stipulated in Republic Act  939 or the Automated Election Law are the ballot verification or ultra violet detectors, the source code review, the voter verified paper audit trail and the digital signature. During my interview with complainant Atty. Glenn Chiong on my TV show, he said that “The digital signature feature is intended to authenticate all transmitted election results and prevent the transmission of fake election results via authorized network intrusion or hacking, while the voter verified paper audit trail would assure the voter that his votes is counted.”

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