Had the Comelec been prepared for the elections?

Perhaps the proper question should be, if the Commission on Elections successfully conducted the May 10, 2010 elections in compliance with its Constitutional mandate to ensure "free, orderly, honest, peaceful, and credible elections".

As things later turned out, it's relevant to ask instead, if the Comelec had been prepared at the crucial pre-election stage of the actual electoral exercises. Answering this question may be indicative if, indeed, the Comelec had complied with its Constitutional mandate.

In the frenzy of the myriad tasks for full automated election, entailing more than P7 billion to buy the Precinct Count Optical Scanners (PCOS) and their accessories and electronic software for 76T clustered polling places nationwide, many issues and possible glitches were raised by doubting Thomases. Some of these anticipatory doubts focused on whether or not the PCOS are full-proof free from electronic tampering, or its transmission of results from the polling places to Comelec be not liable to jamming devices; or, whether the electorate could cope with correct procedure in actual voting using the PCOS, among others.

Significantly, the Comelec consistently assured all and sundry that despite the novel procedure and the doubts being raised, there would be no more glitches to a tamper-free elections.

On the parallel manual voting and canvassing as back up alternative should full automation somehow fail, Comelec also optimistically assured that full automated poll would be the rule, except for 30% manual mode be resorted to, but also vowing that there would be no possible hitches as to call for the 30% reserved provision.

Meantime, the Comelec must have spent millions in disseminating information on intricacies of the PCOS automated election in tv and other media outlets and all public forums. The Board of Election Inspectors composed of public school teachers were also trained on their role in the automated polls. And, demos were likewise repeatedly made on tv in prime time.

At long last, after agonizing against time, most of the PCOS were shipped out for delivery to the LGUs nationwide. However, there were some not yet delivered to their destinations, overtaken by the final testing belatedly scheduled in Makati, Pateros, and Batangas. The info on the final testing shocked the nation when the results in these chosen places turned out to be a total failure. The fault was focused on the serious defects of the compact flash cards (CFCs) inside the PCOS which record the voting data on individual voted candidates for the local positions. The Comelec and Smartmatic, again, appeased the public that the CFCs had to be retrieved from all PCOS machines for configuration, their term.

Note that the CFC defect was discovered only some five days before May 10, 2010. Is this not a stupendous and inexcusable negligence? Why did the Comelec not make the so-called "final testing" before the PCOS were shipped out?

Again, the Comelec through Chairman Jose Melo put on an unconvincing smile before the cameras that the May 10, 2010 elections would not be put off, and repeated that full automation, not manual method, be exclusively used. And yet, inconsistently said that 95% of CFCs would be out by Saturday, two days before May 10, and distributed to clustered precincts and, the final testing of the PCOS be done on Sunday, or just one day before the elections. See how tight the schedule? What if there were still flaws?

Without batting an eyelash, Chairman Melo cited the LGUs whose CFCs might not arrive on time, in some fourteen far-flung provinces. Just imagine the chaos that would ensue! Melo said further that "all will be able to vote but counting may be done night of the election day. And yet, Melo stressed "No manual (voting) is out of the question definitely". What kind of game was Comelec dishing out by sowing confusion and chaos? Was it the old game of "lipat-lipat"?

 You be the judge how prepared Comelec had been in the pre-election phase.