MGG gives Aquino administration grade of 4.69 for 1st year in office

Experts from the Movement for Good Governance (MGG) have given President Aquino a grade of 4.69 for his first year in office, a rating based standards or metrics that the President himself set for his administration at the beginning of his term.

MGG experts used a 10-point scorecard system that benchmarked the administration based on whether the President kept his promises to the Filipino people during his campaign. The rating of 4.69 means that “there has been accomplishments, but more need to be done.”

The rating, qualified by indicators, also evaluates whether the President has the qualities of a transformational leader: effective, empowering, and ethical. These are the qualities that MGG used in benchmarking the candidates in the 2010 elections.

“It is relatively easy to elect a President. The difficulty lies in supporting him so that he succeeds in governance,” said Solita Monsod, MGG chairman and former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary.

During the President’s inaugural address, he said, “No more turning back on pledges made during the campaign, whether today or in the coming challenges that will confront us over the next six years.”

His address metamorphosed into the program of government formally known as President Aquino’s “Social Contract with the Filipino People”, which in turn, serves as the basis of the recently released 2011-2016 Philippine Development Plan, with “Inclusive Growth” as the theme.

Ms. Monsod said supporting the President entails affirming his performance in areas that he has done very well, hence the rigorous process used in benchmarking the administration’s performance objectively.

“Supporting the President also involves reminding him what policies and practices are not coherent with his platforms and promises,” Ms. Monsod said.

In a document entitled “How Well Does The P’Noy Administration Fare?”, the MGG explained how it arrived at the overall rating. The group evaluated the President in the areas of economy, public finance, governance, corruption, education, and health.

MGG is a coalition organized in 2008 to promote transparent, participatory, and accountable governance.

Available for download:

• Assessment Paper
• Press Release
• Powerpoint Presentation

In the news:

• Coalition says ‘Aquinomics’ needs improvement, more action (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 23 July 2011)
• Experts rate P-Noy’s first year (Manila Bulletin, 23 July 2011)
• Movement for Good Governance gives P-Noy 4.7 rating (The Philippine Star, 24 July 2011)
• President Aquino found ‘wanting’ (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 24 July 2011)
• Group gives PNoy ‘lower than expected’ grade (GMA News, 24 July 2011)
• MGG gives Aquino administration grade of 4.69 (ABS-CBN News, 24 July 2011)
• Sizing up the man (People’s Journal, 25 July 2011)
• Malacañang: ‘Noy elected for 6 years, not 1 year’ (The Philippine Star, 25 July 2011)

Friday, July 22, 2011. 7:00 PM
Board Room, Father Bernas Law Center
4/F Ateneo Professional Schools
Rockwell Center, Makati

Grades for governance, corruption, public finance, economy, environment, education, and health will be released.

For confirmations or further information, please contact Chingkel or Aissa at 898.2913 or 898.2617. Thank you.

Solita Collas-Monsod
Chair

Milwida M. Guevara
Convener

Download signed invitation here.

First, the COMELEC chose a solution that was completely foreign – foreign hardware, foreign software, foreign integrator/implementor. On November 12, 2008, we presented to the commissioners a local solution which, at its most elaborate version, would have cost the taxpayers only a third of the P11.3 billion that the COMELEC spent on the automation of the May 10, 2010 elections. We presented this PC-based solution to the commissioners, not as vendors, but as a group of Filipino IT professionals who believe that should the COMELEC espouse this solution, it can then simply source the PCs locally and outsource the implementation to local systems integrators. (A significant benefit is that all the purchased PCs can be donated to public schools after every election, while at the same time avoiding the costly warehousing of the equipment in between elections.)

After our presentation, Chairman Melo remarked, “This is a good solution; if we don’t get the budget we’re asking for, we can use this.” Our jaws dropped upon hearing that remark. At that time, the COMELEC was still asking for a budget of more than P20 billion. The solution we presented would only cost P3-4 billion. We all thought that if they believed our solution was good, then why even bother asking for such a huge budget.

Second, TIM, at one point, wanted to back out of the joint venture for the reason that while they would own 60% of the joint venture company, control would mostly be in the hands of Smartmatic, the foreign company. Instead of rectifying this anomaly, the COMELEC prevailed upon TIM, the Filipino company, to accept this arrangement, or be brought to court.

Third, Section 12 of Republic Act 9369 says, “Once an AES technology is selected for implementation, the Commission shall promptly make the source code of that technology available and open to any interested political party or groups which may conduct their own review thereof.” On the other hand, Section 9 says, “The Committee shall certify, through an established international certification entity … not later than three months before the date of the electoral exercises, categorically stating that the AES, including its hardware and software components, is operating properly, securely, and accurately, …” (Emphases supplied)

What these two paragraphs in the law mean is that the source code of the Automated Election System (AES) technology should have been made available for review by Filipino IT professionals (who were going to review the code free of charge), through their political parties, as early as July, 2009 and to an established international certification entity not later than October 9, 2010 (allowing for a four-month review), thus favoring the locals, timing-wise.

But what did the COMELEC do? It awarded a P70 million contract to Systest Labs, an American company, in October, 2009, and sent word to the locals that they will have to wait until Systest finishes its review and submits its report, before the COMELEC would make the source code available to the locals. To add insult to injury, while COMELEC made all the necessary documents available to Systest for their intensive review in their US offices, it would only make the documents available to the locals under a controlled environment. Rightfully, the locals eventually boycotted that review.

Fourth, the COMELEC recently asked the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), yet another foreign organization, to audit the manner by which automation was implemented in the last elections, while denying the Center for People Empowerment on Governance (CenPEG), a U.P.-based organization, documents that it needs to do a comprehensive evaluation of the the same elections. Saying that the COMELEC probably wants an unbiased opinion as the reason for its asking a foreign organization to do the audit, does not hold water; in fact, it is a naive, yet insulting statement. What made it conclude that IFES is unbiased and CenPEG is not?

So, what’s with the COMELEC and why doesn’t it trust Filipino IT professionals? Doesn’t it know that this attitude sends the wrong message abroad? For the last thirty years, Filipino software companies have been spending much of their capital in marketing their services to companies in the western world. To assist these companies, the software industry has been asking the government to contract out its large IT projects to local systems integrators in order that the latter could use the experience in marketing abroad. And the government has responded positively to this plea. Government agencies such as the LRA, SSS, DFA, BIR, and many others, have contracted out most of their major development work to local systems integrators.

Except the incumbent COMELEC.

This COMELEC effectively awarded the election automation contract to a foreign company which has no experience in an election exercise of this magnitude, that uses paper-based ballots. This inexperience, many IT practitioners believe, could have been one of the reasons for the major problems the project encountered during the election process. But thanks to our COMELEC, this foreign company was given its first experience in this kind of system – experience that it can now use to market the same services in other countries, like Indonesia. (Perhaps, as a friendly neighbor and co-member in the ASEAN, we should warn Indonesia about the many problems that were encountered in our May elections.)

And by the way, yet another reason why the COMELEC should not even entertain thoughts of purchasing the PCOS (Precinct Count Optical Scan) machines that were used during the May, 2010 elections is that the Philippines would forever be hostage to the foreign company which owns the Intellectual Property Rights to the software that runs each and every unit.

This article appears in the Opinion pages of the September 21, 2010 issue of BusinessWorld.

So, without going into technical details, let us analyze whether the 2010 automated elections was truly successful, as COMELEC claims; or not, as IT professionals maintain? Let’s consider just two issues: speed and accuracy.

On speed. President Noynoy Aquino was proclaimed on June 9, 2010, or 30 days from the May 10, 2010 elections.  Not bad.  But wait; former President Joseph Estrada was proclaimed on May 30, 1998, or only 19 days after the May 11, 1998 elections! Much, much better.  And the country did not have to waste P11.3 billion to automate that electoral exercise.

In both instances, there were no big disputes regarding the outcome of the presidential election.  In both instances, the voting public readily accepted the results.  What was common to these two electoral fights?  They were both landslide victories.  This factor then appears to be the key to quick acceptable results.  Just look at the close contest in this year’s vice-presidential race.  A formal protest has even been filed.

But the P11.3 billion was not the only expense that we could have saved ourselves from.  The country also did not have to suffer many months of anxiety over the strong possibility of failed elections – anxiety that started the moment COMELEC awarded the automation contract to Smartmatic-TIM.  Consider the following occurrences:  TIM attempting to divorce itself from the joint venture agreement with Smartmatic;  wires catching fire during the first public system testing;  failure of the communication system during the dry runs conducted by Smartmatic;  delay in the delivery of the machines, caused to a certain extent by the transfer of manufacturing from Taiwan to Shanghai;  delay in the order and delivery of ballot boxes;  delay in the printing of ballots;  discovery of errors in the CF cards one week before election day (extremely unforgivable!).  If one would write a post-evaluation report on the project, a most appropriate title would be “How not to implement a project”.

Surely, we don’t want to experience this kind of anxiety on such an important political exercise as elections, ever again.

On accuracy. The Random Manual Audit (RMA), done on a very small sampling of the precincts, but which took many weeks to complete … no, I should say, which took many weeks before a report would be released to the public, showed an accuracy rate of 99.6%.  That does not meet the mandated 99.995% accuracy rate.  But even the claimed 99.6% rate is questionable.  No explanation was given as to the methodology used in computing that rate, which led some IT people to conclude that the RMA was a sham.

And then, there are the null votes – 1.5 million and 2.6 million votes in the presidential and vice-presidential positions, respectively.  If the reason for these null votes is the inability of PCOS to read some marks, then that’s a form of disenfranchisement – something that would be negligible in manual voting and manual precinct counting (only when handwritten votes are completely illegible).

Because precinct counting is not public, because the audit is unreliable, and because this COMELEC is by far the most non-transparent since we regained our democracy in 1986, we are not sure if those who won, really won and those who lost, really lost, except in those cases when all pre-election surveys and exit polls support the results.

Not content with the monumental problems the COMELEC encountered during the implementation of the PCOS system and perhaps deluded by the seemingly successful outcome, the COMELEC now wants to purchase the machines! It’s bad enough that it made the wrong choice of technology, it now wants to perpetuate the error by buying the machines!

Why does COMELEC want to buy the machines?  Because, according to some commissioners, the COMELEC only needs to pay 30% of the purchase price.  One commissioner even went as far as saying that the machines are being offered at a 70% discount.

According to COMELEC, the lease-purchase agreement provides that it has the option up to December, 2010 to buy the machines at 30% of the purchase price.  Of course!  The rental price in the previous contract is roughly 70% of the purchase price.  That’s the P7.2 billion that we, the taxpayers, paid.

Why shouldn’t COMELEC purchase the PCOS machines?  First, it’s not the most appropriate technology for Philippine elections.  (Personalities in the local IT industry are willing to debate this issue with the COMELEC, its Advisory Council, Smartmatic, and their supporters in the leadership of the PPCRV.)  Second, and this is perhaps the least important, new technology may render PCOS obsolete in the next three years.  Third, repair of the machines after three years of non-use may prove costly.  Fourth, and most important, warehousing these machines would be very expensive.

Let me expound on the last one.  Remember the Mega-Pacific machines that the COMELEC bought in 2003?  The COMELEC has been paying for their storage cost because after more than six years and despite the Supreme Court order, it has not succeeded in returning the machines to the supplier.  Years ago, I was told that the COMELEC was spending P3.9 million annually for the rental of the warehouse.  About two months ago, a reporter who researched on it told me that the COMELEC is, as it turns out, paying P220 per square meter rental (not air-conditioned), or a total of P29 million a year!

That’s only for 1,991 units.  If the COMELEC therefore were to purchase the 82,200 PCOS machines, and assuming the same per square meter cost, then we, the taxpayers, courtesy of the COMELEC, would be paying almost P1.2 billion a year, or P3.5 billion every three years,  just to warehouse them.  Little wonder why Smartmatic has been pressuring COMELEC to purchase the machines.  It’s Smartmatic-TIM who’s paying for the warehousing right now.

This is only one of the issues that the COMELEC does not talk about.  There are many more.

This article appears in the Opinion pages of the August 31, 2010 issue of BusinessWorld.

How and why the incident happened has been dissected by many. But what is often lost in the cacophony of accusations and mea culpas is that blaming and shaming, while they have a place in society, should not be taken too far. The ongoing investigation has to be thorough but, if it is to result in accountability and more importantly in reform and improvement, it must not be turned into a witch hunt that can only embitter, paralyze, and divide a people. We must respond to this incident with the right sense of proportion.

Filipinos have this habit of over-reacting due to our preconceived notions and unfortunately often regardless of the evidence. Our disillusionment with the Arroyo , Estrada and yes Marcos governments makes us overlook or dismiss their positive contributions to Philippine development, perceiving everything they did through a black and white lens. More recently, we saw the hostile reaction to Dean Marvic Leonen’s statement, delivered as the chief negotiator of the Philippines to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, that constitutional change might be an option to achieve peace in Mindanao. In this context, the calls for the resignation of officials right up to Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo are expected. In the case of Robredo, such calls are absurd without any evidence that he made serious errors of judgment during the crisis. In the same way, it is foolish to hold President Aquino or, for that matter, the past administration responsible for what happened. The problems of our police force precede the Aquino and Arroyo administrations. Unless we recognize this fact, our diagnosis of these problems, which should be evidence-based and not be guided by our understandably raw feelings, will be seriously flawed and the problems will remain unsolved.

Apologies are in order for what happened in that tourist bus last week. These gestures of humility, intended to heal wounds, are particularly important for those directly in contact with the peoples of Hong Kong and China, such as our overseas workers, tourism officials and industry, and diplomats. But the country loses its sense of proportion when it expects all its citizens to feel equally guilty or ashamed.

We should also remind ourselves that genuine atonement is not solely about apologies, laying blame, or feeling shame. Apologies without real, tangible, on the ground change are empty words that drive a wedge between apologizer and the hurt one. When all people feel is blame and shame for their mistakes, they become resentful, embittered, suspicious and hostile, making meaningful reform impossible. This is also why it is imperative that we take immediate and constructive steps so that this incident is not repeated.

In my view, aside from fundamental police reforms, we need to make sure that Secretary Robredo, an award winning mayor with nearly 20 years of experience working on local peace and order, has unencumbered powers over the police at the national level. The line of command should be clear from the President downwards to Robredo to the top police officials to the rank and file. If it is true, as reported by other columnists (not in this paper) that Robredo was not given supervision of the police when he was appointed, that needs to be changed right away. We should remember what happened in the Department of Agriculture in the last administration when an Undersecretary was able to bypass his principal and got instructions straight from the President.

The President should also seriously look at his own internal and communication operations so that the way the Palace responded – in my view, a tragedy of errors – never happens again. Foremost is making sure the President has close-in advisers with extensive and senior, including international, governance experience so he is well advised all the time and regardless of type of crisis. He must also make the tough decision of who should singularly head his communications department and replace the current arrangement which is likely to bring him and the country more grief in the future. All professionals will tell the President that communications by committee never works. Unfortunately, this crisis is above all about communications and the Palace is failing absolutely in this challenge.

For the record, in spite of my dissatisfaction with what happened, my optimism for the future of an Aquino-led country remains unchanged. A sense of proportion also means that one sees that a single incident does not make a pattern and should not make us lose hope for our country.

This week, we celebrate National Heroes Day, and to dwell on the mistakes of the past is not what this day is all about. There is a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear and a time to mend, the Book of Ecclesiastes says. Today is therefore a good moment to remember that there are heroes among us.

Despite the mistakes and omissions of the Manila police force, among them surely are honest men and women who answered the call, and put their lives on the line, even while ill-equipped, in the middle of confusion, and against one of their own. Another hero is Venus Raj, our representative to the Miss Universe 2010 pageant. Her less than perfect answer should not overshadow her humble roots, the virtues she brought to the stage, or the odds against her. She should make us proud, not ashamed. This week is also a time to remember present day heroes, not only in the Philippines but in Asia with the traditional awarding ceremony of the Ramon Magsaysay awardees. Let us celebrate particularly the two Filipino science teachers who are among this year’s awardees.

Finally, there are our fellow Filipinos in Hong Kong who are in the front lines of this crisis. I know many of them personally and they have communicated to me through text, email, Facebook and Twitter how affected they are by what happened. Let us salute them for their sacrifice, courage and dignity – and give them whatever support they need to overcome this. They are truly our heroes and we owe this to them.

Overcoming the fog of confusion, today and in the weeks to come, why don’t we surprise ourselves and find our heroes from both unlikely and ordinary of sources? For a start, let’s truly get to the bottom of this incident and make the changes necessary so that never, never again do we have to do so much blaming and shaming. That to me is doing things with a good sense of proportion.

Email: Tonylavs@gmail.com Facebook: Tonylavs@gmail.com Twitter: tonylavs

This article is a slightly edited version of Dean La Viña’s column “Eagle Eyes” in the Manila Standard Today published on August 31, 2010.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.