2010 POLL AUTOMATION
When the issue about poll automation have been brought up many news and articles have been written, discussing about this whole thing. A lot of questions have made up to people’s mind, Would this automated election could eliminate possible cheaters? Would it help us, the people votes to be worth it as a citizen of the Republic of the Philippines? These are just few issues and queries embodied by the preparation of the 2010 Poll automation.
As few of us know, it has been seventeen years since the first initiatives to automate Philippine elections. The effort has spanned three administrations (Presidents Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo) and five national elections (not counting barangay elections and the ARMM gubernatorial elections). But still nothing have been implemented because of some uncertain circumstances. Now, there is another attempt of pursuing this Automated Election for 2010. It was on January 7, this year when the Commission on Elections (Comelec) submits a P13.9 billion-budget for the automation of the 2010 elections to the DBM.
From March 5 to June 9 of 2009, a lot of activities have been worked on to be able to perform this much awaited Poll Automation in 2010. These includes the passing of the Senate of P11.3 billion-supplemental budget for the automation of the 2010 elections, obtaining of bid documents from Commission on Elections (Comelec) for the automation of the 2010 elections of the eleven prospective bidders which in the scanning of the documents only seven bidders passed. Also when Pres. Arroyo signs RA 9295 which allocates funds for the automation of the elections, the public bidding organized by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and all other process they have to encounter in order for the election process to reach a higher level in terms of credibility and technology. After all those procedures they have undergone, only one bidder have the chance to lead all of us to a clean and honest election process as a lot of people believe. This is the Netherlands-based Smartmatic and its Filipino partner Total Information Management (TIM).
But, later this month numerous reports have been stated that the automation of the 2010 elections was placed in jeopardy after the Filipino partner of the technology consortium that won the bidding for the project backed out, which is the Total Information Management (TIM),announced by The Commission on Elections Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Jose Melo. Some officials of Total Information Management Corp. (TIM) informed him that they were withdrawing from their partnership with Dutch firm Smartmatic International. According to Commission on Elections (Comelec), Chairman Jose Melo, there are some irreconcilable differences between the two companies. Allegedly issues also came out that there are some people in the administration or politicians who were manipulating the Filipino partner in order to back-out. Also, the issue about the financial arises, whether which of the two would get the much higher profit with these future automated election. By then, loads of people have been frustrated upon hearing the news. The hope of having much cleaner procedures for the most mission critical election for our country have just gone. However, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) assures the people that they would settle this mess.
So, just this morning July 4, 2009 in the Philippine Star, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Jose Melo has announced that “Were able to iron out their differences over the control of funds for the P11.2-billion poll automation project. We were able to thresh out everything. Everything seems to be on track again after one week of suspense and apprehension that we will be reverting to the manual system. We are back with automation”.
On my own perspective, Poll automation in the 2010 elections is good because we have to keep abreast with trends in modernization. However, considering that it’s the first time we are attempting this technology, we can expect some problems to transpire and this will again compel the government to shell out several more millions. Its success can only be gauged by implementation and seeing its results. It’s a tremendous boost to our obsolete vote-counting system and would ultimately improve our unreliable election process. But still we can never be assured that it’s automated, so we are free from election fraud. Machines can cheat more efficiently than people, if so programmed.
As far as I know, it is still manual in terms of selecting the candidates, we just need to shade the circle of our choice and let the machines do the counting and tallying. Though poll automation will make counting votes quicker, I still have my doubts if the powers-that-be would not hack computer programs come year 2010. For the human virus will surely destroy the genuine purpose of automation. Cheaters will always find a way to hack the machine.
On the positive side, I could say that this is a welcome news for the Filipinos, the majority of voters expect the machines to deliver the goods. If not, we would be in a lot more trouble than before. The Commission on Elections should ensure that no sleight of hand will occur. The technical people of the Commission on Elections should work side by side with the supplier, from delivery period to actual operation during the elections. If these things are met, then we are in for a new age in election history. I believe that everybody has been eager for this moment to come because it will now bail us out of the globally laughable Jurassic electoral system that has been toyed with by politicians in the Philippine election playground for many years now, exploiting its weaknesses by using all sorts of immoral, unethical and even criminal methods.
Now that we have this poll automation for the next elections and thereafter, I only hope that the criminally-inclined will not tinker with it and render it ineffective to come out with true election results. If programmed and used honestly, this new system will push back to history the oft-repeated complaint by losing politicians, “Dinaya ako.” After so many decades of manual vote counting, we will at last have an honest-to-goodness automated poll count. Yes, let’s give the Commission on Elections and the winning bidder a chance to prove their worth in 2010. Otherwise, we would be staying true to our tag as “the nation of crabs”. Poll automation is a welcome change in the upcoming 2010 election. With this the Filipinos we’re hoping for a cleaner and transparent counting of votes. Let’s just pray that in the end this long journey for the poll automation will be successful.
References:
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=483573&publicationSubCategoryId=63
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/features/07/01/09/timeline-long-road-poll-automation
Philippine Daily Inquirer
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