“Ka-Vibes” doesn’t seem to be working by Solita Collas-Monsod

Someone calls the Malacañang trunk line in the middle of a hostage crisis involving Hong Kong nationals and asks to talk to President Aquino. He claims to be calling for Donald Tsang, the chief executive of Hong Kong. You are one of the presidential aides, and you are not sure that the call is authentic. What do you do?

a) Suggest that he route his call through the Department of Foreign Affairs, as protocol demands.

b) Tell him the President is not accessible at the moment but will get back to him as soon as he is reached.

c) Tell him the line is not clear, and the President will call him back on another line immediately.

The first option has to be the pits. There is a crisis going on, and if the caller is who he says he is, he is understandably trying to cut through red tape. The aide choosing this alternative should be fired immediately, because either he has, without any basis, come to the conclusion that the caller is a fraud and is palming him off, thus putting his principal and the country in hot water if the caller is authentic; or he is inept and cannot exercise initiative in unusual situations, hiding behind bureaucratic procedures instead. The President needs this aide like he needs a hole in the head.

The second option is better than the first, but still unacceptable. It is better because the aide at least has kept his mind open about the authenticity of the caller, and is covering all bases, because if the caller is a fraud, it will be discovered immediately when the chief executive’s office is called. But it will leave a bad impression (if authentic) of inefficiency in the seat of power. In this day of communications technology, how can a President not be immediately accessible to his office?

The third alternative covers all the bases, and of course is the best choice. If it was indeed Tsang who called, he would be gratified at the immediate response. And if the original caller was fraudulent, the President’s call will be interpreted by Tsang as a thoughtful and sincere initiative to assure him that all is being done to ensure the hostages’ safety, and that he will be updated regularly by whoever is in charge of the negotiations.

From what I read in the papers, option one was chosen, or a truly fumbled variant of it: the caller was told that the Department of Foreign Affairs would call back; but the DFA was told to await the call from Hong Kong. Which is why Tsang waited for a return call in vain, even as DFA was waiting for the Hong Kong call—until the tragedy occurred. No wonder Tsang was hopping mad, and no wonder his constituents were angry. (Which does not excuse their stupid retaliatory actions.)

What is not clear is whether the President was apprised of the Tsang call (whether real or fraudulent). If he was not, then again, heads should roll. If he was, it is legitimate to ask why he did not call Tsang (regardless of the original call’s authenticity). There was nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by calling his counterpart to convey his assurances. Obviously the President’s head cannot roll—not this early in the game anyway—but one has to wonder about the quality of the advise he is receiving, which means the quality of his close-in aides. Kaklase Inc. or Ka-Vibes (a.k.a. Ka-rancho, ka-billiards, ka-yosi) does not seem to be working out too well. Now may be a good time to reexamine this criterion for selection.

In the search for a scapegoat (Who was in charge?), the primary target appears to be Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo. He is head of the department charged with promoting peace and order, ensuring public safety, and strengthening the capabilities of local government units as well as overseeing the Philippine National Police. I have made no secret that I am impressed with his credentials and his performance as a local government executive, although I have not even had the opportunity to congratulate him or talk to him since his appointment. And there is no reason to change my mind.

Yes, he should have been in charge, and apparently he was in the command center. And if he had been in charge, things would certainly have turned out different.

Judging from stories from knowledgeable sources, however, he could not have been in charge because, while he is DILG head, he was supposedly ordered to concentrate on the local government side, and to leave the PNP side to Undersecretary Rico Escalona Puno. In which case, Puno, the first undersecretary appointed by P-Noy, should be the one debriefed.

Who is Puno? Googling reveals that until he burst forth as undersecretary, there is nothing on him. His appointment was accompanied by the info that he was a consultant of then Tarlac Rep. Noynoy Aquino and also served him in the Senate, in charge of public order and safety, economic affairs and local government, and liaising with PNP and the Armed Forces. He was in the Liberal Party’s National Campaign Committee. The basis of their friendship, aside from a common province, is apparently that both are gun enthusiasts. Ka-Vibes trumping competence, not to mention integrity, anytime.

Actually, it seemed that everything was going well until the Gregorio Mendoza situation, when the laxity of the police with respect to broadcast (TV) media, combined with the latter’s incredible irresponsibility, resulted in that awful tragedy and brought everybody else’s shortcomings to light.

Unless all involved learn from this experience, we are bound to repeat our mistakes.

This article appeared in Prof. Monsod’s column “Get Real” in the Philippine Daily Inquirer published on August 28, 2010.

Roundtable Discussion on Environmental Management

Photo by Francis R. Malasig/EPA

A number of environmental problems have plagued the Philippines for decades. These include urban congestion, water shortage, depletion of forest resources, degradation of coastal and marine resources, loss of biodiversity and habitat destruction, land-use conversion, waste disposal, and water and air pollution. Among these problems, the country faces four broad environmental challenges: degradation of forest and marine resources; urban water, air pollution and the declining quality and availability of water resources; solid waste generation; and government capacity to enforce environmental policies. In turn, a rapidly disintegrating environment increases pollution, threatens public health and food security, and widens the gap between rich and poor. Recent tragedies brought about by natural disasters have also been blamed on lack of disaster risk preparedness on the part of the government, crisis mitigation and deforestation.

This paper aims to present the major environmental problems in the Philippines with a focus on how they affect human welfare and sustainability. It will also try to identify opportunities for ecological reform and intervention.

Continue reading the MGG Policy Paper on Environmental Management (First Draft)

The Movement for Good Governance will hold a roundtable discussion on environmental management tomorrow, August 20, 2010 at 9:00 A.M. at the Blue Room. Ateneo Professional Schools, Rockwell Center. Environmental policy experts such as Ateneo School of Government Dean Tony La Vina and Congressman Neric Acosta have been invited to discuss the draft policy paper above. Former DENR Secretary Bebet Gozun will chair the meeting.

Shape up, Comelec by Solita Collas-Monsod

May I ask why it is that nine days after elections, the PPCRV’s tally still covers barely 90% of the election returns? Surely by this time all 76,000 PCOS machines should have been able to transmit the results electronically. That is, after all, part of what an Automated Election System is all about. After all, the Comelec itself had originally stated that two days after the elections, the tally would be complete.

PPCRV has a lot to answer for, as far as I am concerned, particularly because it opposed (successfully) the accreditation of Namfrel which has more than 27 years and at least eight national elections’ worth of counting experience under its belt, compared to PPCRV’s zero experience. At the same time, Comelec also has a lot to answer for because it allowed PPCRV to conduct a public count, even if its accreditation — at least originally anyway, was limited to a count for internal purposes only. If I remember correctly, Comelec’s reason for not accrediting Namfrel was because the elections would be automated, and everybody would have access to the transmitted election returns, so Namfrel raison d’etre was gone. Or some such rot.

Moreover, in the non-automated days, Namfrel had to depend on its volunteers (PPCRV among them) to transmit the manually accomplished official ERs — which was an inherently difficult task because it was entitled to only the seventh or eighth copy which was barely legible — remember, those were the days of carbon copies. Yet it still was able to come up with 80% of the count before the official canvassing took place. Now, PPCRV had access to the fourth PRINTED copy of the ER, aside from, of course, the ERs transmitted to the Pius Center’s server as well as those provided by the Comelec Central Server. Surely it should have been able to do better than 90%? Or is one asking too much?

By the way, Comelec Commissioner Larrazabal told me last Friday night (May 14) that, actually, 98% of the ERs had already been transmitted and received — but the problem was that they were in different servers (Comelec Central Server, Pius/KBP server, City/Municipal Server). This is because there were transmission problems, and some ERs would transmit to one but not to the others, and vice-versa. When I asked if that meant that we would have the results of the 98% available on Saturday, he said no — but they would be available on Sunday (May 16). But as of 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, May 19, only 90% of the ERs have been tallied, with the PPCRV ready to close shop. Couldn’t the PPCRV have tried to latch on to that additional 8%? Or more to the point, why couldn’t the Comelec download that additional 8% to the PPCRV the way it did the other 90%? Whatever happened to Comelec’s boast that with an automated system, the public would know the results, albeit unofficially, within two days (pardon the nagging)?

Moreover, it was my understanding that the PPCRV was supposed to have been in-charge of monitoring the Random Manual Audit or RMA — of the five precincts per congressional district chosen at random with great fanfare the day before election day. These precincts were to have their ballots manually counted (by a different BEI) right after the machine count. It was a process that should have taken two hours (if three names were counted — President, Vice-President and Mayor) according to the time and motion study conducted by the IT experts. And it was important because it would be an indicator — although not a foolproof one (a hash test of all the machines, I am told, would be the best) — of possible internal rigging of the PCOS machines.

Well, here we are, nine days after election day, and the RMA results aren’t out yet. Reportedly, only 600 of the 1,100 or so precincts have already been audited — this was supposed to have been done on election day, you understand. Why didn’t the PPCRV, which was supposed to be monitoring this, scream about it? But then again, the political parties should have been screaming their heads off, too. The PPCRV was supposed to be watching out for the interests of the voters — to see that their choices were recorded faithfully. The political parties were supposed to be watching out for the interests of their candidates — to see that they would not be cheated.

But in the final analysis, while the PPCRV and the political parties may have fallen down on their jobs, the main responsibility for free , fair and honest elections lies with the Comelec. And even as the Comelec seems to have equated speed with honesty, it has itself fallen down even just on the speed part.

Because, let’s face it: The only reason we are now so sure that Noynoy Aquino is our president-elect is not because of Comelec’s speed, but only because the margin between Noynoy and his nearest rival, with 90% of the votes tallied, is a little over five million, which is about the same as the number of still uncounted (or more accurately, unreported votes), assuming a 75% voter turnout ratio. Which means that even if all the uncounted votes went to Erap Estrada, there would be at most a tie. And again, let’s face it — surely at least some of those unreported votes will also be going to Noynoy.

Or put it in another way: If the presidential race had been closer, the way the Roxas-Binay contest has shaped up to be, the public would still, at this point, have no idea, even with an automated election system, who the winner would be — because at least five million votes have still to be counted/reported, nine days after the election. Of course, if the majority party Lakas-Kampi, and the dominant minority Liberal Party had all the municipal and city certificates of canvas, they should themselves know by now. But we are, after all, talking about what an automated election system should be able to produce in terms of speed, as far as the public is concerned. They are entitled to that, having forked over P11 billion for the project.

The Comelec should be commended? Please. And I am just talking speed. The honesty or accuracy of the results (accurate in terms of reflecting the people’s will) is even more important, and the Comelec hasn’t even begun to resolve that issue, if only through the RMA. Already, talk is rife about politicians having been approached by people offering them specific election results in their favor (complete with percentages for each candidate) in exchange for monetary considerations (P15 million for mayor, P50 for governor, negotiable, 20% down, 80% on delivery). Merely a scam? Maybe. But those who refused to deal ended up on the losing side — in spite of favorable surveys done by credible organizations) — and claim that the winners won with the same percentages offered them, and they lost with the same percentages specified.

Shape up, Comelec.

Press Release: CenPEG Calls for Independent Probe of Automated Polls

The May 10 Elections: Questions, Answers
The Call to Form an Independent and Impartial Body to Review and Assess the Automated Elections;
Impartial Investigation of Election Irregularities
By the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)
May 17, 2010

The Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) congratulates the teachers, media, watchdogs, and the Filipino people, for their collective efforts at vigilance and dedication to national interest during the May 10, 2010 national and local elections. Although there should yet be no judgment on the overall failure or success of this electoral exercise, these people provided the face of Government where Government, particularly the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and its agent Smartmatic, was non-existent. They demonstrated to the Filipino nation the values of accountability and transparency in their own humble way.

These traits we witnessed in the face of what many believed to be the Comelec’s and Smartmatic’s seeming disorganization, ill-preparedness and chaotic indifference, to what was the first automated elections in our history. Indeed we were left to fend for our own selves – from creating systems on verifying voters’ list to providing means by which manual voting and electronic counting could perhaps proceed – if only to save the nation from discord and strife that could have followed the elections. Where the Comelec and Smartmatic failed in extending adequate voters’ education and poll watch training to millions of voters, it is the citizens watchdogs, various groups from the Church, schools, NGOs, and other institutions – including those that the Comelec-Smartmatic and CAC unabashedly called “doomsayers” and AES “critics” – that filled this void.

CenPEG is alarmed that the Comelec and Smartmatic have tolerated a flawed process to fester, and is dismayed that these entities have appropriated today’s calmness and sobriety that the Filipino people by their own, individually and collectively, embraced and nurtured. Indeed victory has many parents but decency dictates that the Comelec and Smartmatic cease from patting their backs in congratulatory mode, for they did less than what was expected of them to make the automated election system work.

The election results may have been “fast,” to cite Comelec and Smartmatic, but this claim should not gloss over the fact that over and above the poll outcome is the overarching need to establish the integrity of such results and to determine whether automation did promote democracy and address the systemic problem of fraud.

CenPEG’s monitoring of the May 10 elections through reports from its field researchers, poll watchers, and other reliable sources reveal a significant number of incidents all over the country on the May 10 automated elections involving:

  1. Malfunctioning, shutting down, and even destruction of PCOS machines, compact flash (CF) cards unable to function, paper jams, and power outages in many areas;
  2. Failure of transmission from the clustered precincts, forcing BEIs to bring the CF cards or even PCOS machines to the municipal canvassing centers (manual transmission). We have received reports from May 10-15 of failures of transmission from many municipalities and provinces; a number of clustered precincts resorted to manual count due to PCOS and CF card failures;
  3. Delayed canvassing and random manual audits (RMAs) in many areas with the results of completed RMAs remaining undisclosed

Aggravated by inefficient voting procedures enforced by Comelec and the lack of training given to BEI personnel, these technical glitches, power outages, and widespread transmission failures resulted in the disenfranchisement of many voters during the election. CenPEG estimates the actual number of voters at 35.3 million or 70.9 percent of the 50.7 million registered voters, and leaving a big 15% percent unable to vote or disenfranchised. The number of disenfranchised voters could be bigger because of a significant number of rejected ballots. The poor voting management procedures, technical breakdowns, transmission failures, delayed canvassing and RMAs were vulnerable to the tampering of the election results – an independent probe of which has been started by CenPEG.

In many rural areas nationwide, CenPEG’s field reports reveal Comelec’s failure to prevent soldiers and police personnel from intruding into voting centers in violation of election laws to position security forces outside the 50-meter radius of the polling place.

Even before the holding of the May 10 election, the automated election system (AES) was already stripped of the legal processes, safeguards, and minimum industry standards as mandated by the election law and Comelec’s ToR. Urgent proposals and recommendations raised by CenPEG, the AES Watch, and other citizens watchdogs for a source code review, the enabling of voters verifiability feature, digital signature and private keys to be generated solely by the BEIs, adequate and timely voters education and BEI training, the holding of real mock elections, and accurate field tests remained unheeded up until the final stretch of election preparations. As mandated by law, all these were absolutely necessary in order to establish the integrity of the AES and the election results.

Meantime, there are issues and concerns that Comelec should answer to test its claim of “success” and “celebration of democracy” of the May 10 election. We ask Comelec’s cooperation in providing us data and information in the spirit of fully disclosing or explaining the following:

  1. Failure to fully cleanse the voters’ registration lists, with many legitimate voters de-listed from their polling precincts and many others unable to vote;
  2. The actual number of PCOS machines that successfully transmitted and how “transmissions” were done from polling centers with many machines unable to transmit or failed to transmit altogether;
  3. The magnitude of PCOS breakdowns, malfunctioning CF cards, and other technical problems;
  4. The real reasons for the malfunctioning of the CF cards in the May 3 final testing and sealing (FTS) and whether the new CF cards were correctly reconfigured. How many of the reconfigured CF cards reached their destinations before election and how many did not? The problem arising from incorrectly configured CF cards that Comelec discovered on May 3 and the haste and limited material time for the Smartmatic to re-do the process would contribute to the erroneous counting of votes.
  5. Whether a final FTS was done prior to the election and, if so, how many of the 76,340 clustered precincts were able to conduct the FTS and what is the percentage of success or accuracy. In relation to this, was the FTS in the clustered precincts witnessed by poll watchers and election watchdogs?
  6. Why the use of the P30M worth of UV scanners was not fully complied with and why the Comelec website reveals only summarized election returns (ERs). The accuracy of the ERs cannot be verified unless the digitally-signed, consolidated returns from the clustered precincts are transparent. on the website.
  7. Why did Comelec Chairman Jose Melo start reading before the media the “first transmitted results” at 6:30 p.m. May 10 even if the polls were to be closed at 7 p.m.? Comelec should explain the discrepancy in the “first transmitted results” from Western Samar and Zamboanga Sibugay when the first transmissions were officially registered from a different province at 7:30 p.m.? Western Samar was able to transmit results only on May 14.
  8. Moreover, was it simple oversight, or just a case of incompetence, or was there an evil scheme to rig election results in the case of the highly-irregular storage of 67 PCOS machines in Antipolo and the reported Cagayan de Oro election returns (ER) junk shop discovery?
  9. Why were CF cards – vital pieces of evidence– ordered destroyed in the face of the May 3 CF card disaster?
  10. And many other questions that beg to be answered including the 153,902,003 number of voters registered by Smartmatic machines at the national canvassing center!

Moreover, contrary to Comelec claims the automation system failed to prevent fraud of all types like the widespread incidence of vote-buying, election-related violence, campaign overspending, vilification schemes against progressive candidates, and other types of cheating. It failed to “promote democracy” owing to the big number of disenfranchised voters. It also failed to equalize the election playing field with many political dynasties and powers-that-be being retained in power from the presidency down to the LGUs. It would take longer to verify the accuracy and credibility of all the election results amid the failure of the system to provide transparency to the counting, canvassing, and consolidation of the results.

CenPEG is in the process of collating data to help each of us objectively and rationally assess the outcome of the recently-concluded elections. As social scientists, we cannot stand idly by to accept a verdict without substantiation, to allow our sense of vigilance to be lulled by the Comelec and Smartmatic’s empty “trust-the-machine” rhetoric.

An overriding task of researchers and analysts is to seek out facts. Well-researched findings should be able to provide the outcome of projects and programs, generate solutions, safeguards, and/or remedies to identified problems and vulnerabilities way ahead of implementation and, in the process, help support policy and law reform toward effective governance. THAT was the rationale behind CenPEG’s study on the 30 vulnerabilities and 30 safeguards of the Philippine AES. Research is not doomsaying, research is truth and fact finding. And a basic requirement to make any research meaningful is access to information and availability of documents.

CenPEG therefore asks the Comelec and Smartmatic to provide or at least make available to every interested voter, candidate or entity engaged in electoral advocacy, all documents – electronic and hardcopy – by which this assessment could be accomplished with reasonable accuracy and transparency. The state of elections is at severe and critical stake if we are to continue in this context of Governmental disarray and purposelessness, turmoil and incompetence. The only way to arrest this skid, nay, this systemic disorganization in our electoral system is to work here and now and impose accountability upon those who should be accountable.

In the tight race for the Vice Presidency, the anxious 10th to 12th spot fot the Senate, the party-list contests, the fiercely disputed local posts, the CenPEG certainly cannot say that electoral problems and issues are over and done with. We must reserve judgment until all parties have been asked and their questions answered, until judgment is due. We cannot afford another case of impunity in this country for we have already too many to count. As an immediate remedy, there should be an immediate probe into the highly irregular destruction of CF cards and questionable actions related to the handling of the PCOS machines and election procedures all over the country.

As part of policy reform, CenPEG calls for the formation of an independent, non-partisan, and impartial citizens’ body to review and assess the conduct of the May 10, 2010 automated elections, including the processes and procedures taken and inquiry into BUDGET USE in preparing for the election and thereafter. The Joint Congressional Oversight Committee under a new administration must also act now to exercise its statutory mandate to require the Comelec and Smartmatic to reveal all information or data in whatever form so that the citizens’ body could very well perform its intended duties. This independent initiative is imperative not only to clear the air with regard to the conduct of the recent elections but to conclude once and for all whether the Smartmatic-propelled automation as claimed by Comelec promoted fair, transparent and credible May 10, 2010 election.

Video recording of press conference by the Peoples’ International Observers Mission on the conduct of the 2010 elections

Assessment of the May 10 Elections by Gus Lagman

Several of my friends asked me what my assessment was about the conduct of the May 10, 2010 elections. I have always answered thus:

I am very happy that Manila started receiving the data not long after the polls closed and that the result of the presidential elections was resolved early. That was truly amazing and almost unbelievable!

Nonetheless, I still maintain my original position that the technology chosen by the Comelec had a high probability of failure and that, because counting was not public, it would be easy to automate wholesale cheating. That neither seemed to have happened in the last elections does not mean that these statements are no longer true.

This is the reason why when asked during a TV talk show midnight of election day if I were willing to “eat my words”, I unhesitatingly said, “No, of course not!”

Why didn’t it fail? First, the teachers, who were the members of the Boards of Election Inspectors (BEI), performed extremely well. Theirs was a Herculean task, fraught with all kinds of problems, yet they delivered. We truly must salute them. Second, the voters were determined to make the system work. They so wanted their voices to be heard, their votes to be counted, that they stayed on despite the very long queues at the precincts. I definitely subscribe to Conrad de Quiros’ interpretation of this current political situation as being an EDSA masquerading as an election. And third, a large logistics company with a wide geographic coverage came in the last minute, to help deliver more than 50% of the PCOS machines and later, the re-configured CF cards.

And what about wholesale cheating, did it happen? No doubt it could have happened. What saved the day for us was the large margin of Noynoy Aquino in the surveys. There was no way the public would have accepted contrary results. If only for this, there’s reason to keep running those surveys. Without them, any result would have to be accepted, no matter how disappointing, for there wouldn’t be any basis for contradicting it and launching protest action. (Even Cory Aquino needed a basis for claiming victory during the snap elections. That was the Namfrel count.)

An incontrovertible proof that wholesale cheating could have happened and that it’s far easier to launch such, is the fiasco that happened on May 3, 2010. Smartmatic had to replace all the CF cards because they were not counting the votes correctly. (Meaning ALL 76,300 machines were corrupted.) This would not have been discovered had those 350 (according to some reports) PCOS machines not been tested on that day. An intentionally embedded “cheating program” would have been more difficult to detect as it could “hide” itself during testing.

While there are some people who have congratulated the Comelec and Smartmatic, I definitely will not do so. In fact, I would demand that they explain to the Filipino people the following:

  1. Why didn’t the Comelec make the source code “immediately” available to political parties and groups, as R.A. 9369 mandates? Why did they pay Systest Labs P72 million and give them more than four months to review the code, yet would only give the local experts, who were going to do the review for free, only three months? And why all the restrictions on the said review? It’s no wonder the local IT experts “walked away” from the effort.
  2. The Systest Labs report was submitted to the Comelec in February. Why wasn’t the report released to the public soon after? The unofficial copy that many somehow received showed many shortcomings in the Smartmatic system that should have prevented its being certified.
  3. Why did Comelec allow Smartmatic to generate all the BEI electronic signatures without giving the teachers an option to change them? This gave Smartmatic ready access to all the PCOS machines, even from a remote area.
  4. Why weren’t the PCOS and CF cards tested much earlier? Major errors that threaten the success and credibility of elections should not happen ONE WEEK before elections. How sure are we that all CF cards were replaced? Was the reconfiguration of the cards done in the presence of qualified watchers?
  5. What did Comelec/Smartmatic do with the erroneous CF cards? They have evidential value and should be subjected to forensic review.
  6. Why did the Comelec canvass the president and vice-president results? According to our Constitution, only Congress can perform that function, even as private entities are allowed to do unofficial counts. All the commissioners are lawyers and should know about this specific provision. They were more than halfway done when they realized this and that was the only time they stopped.
  7. The random manual audit was supposed to have started immediately after the precinct count. How come the results have yet to be released one week after the elections?
  8. The voter turn-out, according to the Comelec, was around 75%. That’s 5-10% short of expectations. This translates to 2.5 to 5 million voters who, because of inefficient precinct clustering, might have been disenfranchised. That’s way too high!
  9. The Comelec said that PCOS would prevent traditional ways of cheating, like ballot box switching. But there are a lot of talks now that there might have been CF card switching, something that’s obviously much easier to do, considering its size.
  10. In a meeting a few weeks before the elections, Commissioner Larrazabal mentioned that most of the P4.1 billion, that is the difference between the approved budget of P11.3 billion and Smartmatic’s quote of P7.2 billion, have likewise been spent. Comelec should make these expenses public. Was it a case of awarding a contract to a lowest bidder, only to grant additional contracts to that same bidder later?

No, I’m not about to exonerate the Comelec and Smartmatic of wrongdoing. As a friend said, “flying a plane with technical issues and landing it safely, does not make the pilot or the airline free from liability.” And they certainly owe the Filipino people an explanation to the above questions.

We were plain lucky. The election results were generally credible … despite the Comelec! But it was a costly system — not only in terms of money (P7.2 billion), but also in terms of voting secrecy, which was sacrificed, and public counting, which was ignored.

Gus Lagman is a convenor of the Movement for Good Governance, lead convenor of TransparentElections.Org. Ph, former president of Information Technology Foundation of the Philippines (ITFP), former president of Philippine Computer Society (CSP), and former Technology Chief of NAMFREL.