The die is cast

We are less than two weeks before the May 13 elections but nothing has been resolved about the defects and flaws of the Smartmatic-PCOS machines hired by the Comelec. The threat of a failure of election is becoming increasingly certain as the electoral body continues to stonewall questions on just how the election is going to be conducted.

It cannot be said that the Automated Election System Watch (AES Watch) and other concerned groups including Church officials did not try to conduct a reasonable dialogue with Comelec officials to find solutions for problems coming from the Smartmatic-PCOS election system. All this was to no avail.

AES Watch and allied groups went out of their way to tackle each flaw scrupulously, cooperating fully with the electoral body so a solution could be found to have an honest and orderly election. Between the two protagonists, AES Watch seemed more concerned than Comelec in making sure the automated electoral system worked.

As for Comelec it would just as merrily continue with its nefarious partnership with Smartmatic-PCOS, a discredited operator and seller of election systems. Never mind if there were no digital signatures, no built-in ultra violet scanner and no voter verification.

Of these flaws the most significant is the absence of a source code that could be examined by interested parties. An automated election without a source code is unacceptable.

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Professor Bobby Tuazon, director for Policy Studies at the Center for People Empowerment in Governance, offers an answer:

“The real reason why Comelec then and now could not release the source code for independent review by the voters through political parties and other interested groups is that Dominion, under its licensing agreement with Smartmatic, will not allow any review as a “proprietary right.”

So why did the then Comelec award the contract to Smartmatic to provide the technology for the 2010 elections when this marketing company had no access to the source code? The termination by Dominion of its licensing agreement with Smartmatic (2009) removed the latter’s access to the source code. This is one of the reasons it cannot correct the program errors and bugs discovered in 2010.

Comelec’s Chairman Brillantes has been caught lying through his teeth, blowing hot and cold about the source code. One day he says there is and another day he says there is none. Is there or isn’t there? It is a simple question that can readily be answered by yes or no but it is also enough to trap someone who is out to justify a crime. Chairman Brillantes fell on his self-made trap and opened what could be an even bigger war than he ever contemplated.

He said that the election this year will not have a source code review. He did not say that there is but there will be no review and adds the challenge to protesters “if there was no source code review in May 2010 why should there be one in 2013?” Bang. Bang. Bang. That was a roar as loud as exploding cannons to shut up all the shouting of debate.

In other words, Brillantes has now admitted that there was no source code review in May 2010. He strikes at the very heart of the incumbent Aquino government elected in 2010.

We do not know how and why the officials were elected then and that goes as high up as the President and the Vice-President of the Philippines.

So now we are not only facing the problem of May 2013 but also of May 2010 thanks to an admission by Brillantes himself.  Because of his statement, we have no choice but accept the challenge of finding out just what happened in May 2010. The die is cast. We are now forced to face the heart of the issue.

As a seller of automated electoral systems, Smartmatic also offered its products to other countries. Mongolia and Puerto Rico among others  rejected the offer from Smartmatic when it discovered that the true owners of the source code and the technology was the Dominion Electoral Systems.

The Philippines through Comelec did no such thing except to give the lame excuse that Smartmatic “hid” it from them.

Faced with such facts out do we have any honorable choice but to get at the bottom of just what happened in 2010? These facts have come out because of Smartmatic’s own admissions in its suit against Dominion in Delaware.

“At this point it is very clear that the Brillantes Commission will continue the legal violations that Comelec committed in the 2010 elections. If we do not stop this now, electronic cheating will be institutionalized and our democracy will surely die,” CBCP’s Bishop Pabillo said.

The Pabillo statement was issued in another last-ditch effort to save the elections. It asked for a parallel manual count but the suggestion was immediately turned down by Comelec.

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Since Comelec has sealed all avenues for solving the sorry mess of automated elections in the Philippines, AES and its allied groups are poised to bring the issue to United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) in Geneva, Switzerland.

Whatever will happen on May 13, one thing is sure ‑ Comelec’s and this government’s insistence on Smartmatic-PCOS and protests from Filipino voters will have an international audience.

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Here is a story from Alec Boyd’s blog. “Smartmatic then popped up in the Philippines, in 2009, where it was granted an electoral contract, to run elections in 2010, worth $150 million. The company was described by Reuters as a “Barbados-based firm”.

The way in which the company was contracted drew much criticism, and has been duly published in the media.

Upon conclusion of elections in 2010, Smartmatic officials were summoned before Filipino Congress to explain a number of irregularities that occurred during the election.” (We all know what happened).

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I notice that as the debate between Comelec and AES and its allied groups heats up with each day, better ratings for the Philippines are being announced out to the press.

Yesterday almost simultaneously with the announcement of an international suit against Comelec, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) raised the country’s credit rating by a notch, from BB to BB+ citing the government’s declining debt burden and other favorable developments on the economic front.

Are the two issues connected? I certainly know of investors who would not touch the Philippines with a ten-foot pole because of its unstable politics and inconsistent policies.