In my last post before the May 10 elections, I contended that life in this modern age would be easy and comfortable if people trust one another. Life becomes difficult, stagnant and miserable if people operate on distrust.
Trust requires almost as a matter of necessity that those engaged in economic and social transactions will offer and give their best to their endeavor because that is the only way to guarantee and sustain a productive, stable, and meaningful relationship.
Trust was the raging issue during the last national and local elections.
On May 10, 2010, the Filipino people put in their right places the pessimists, the skeptics, and the doomsayers of the first automated elections in the country. The people put aside suspicion and doubts on the credibility and integrity of the entire electoral system and went to the polling places in droves, braving the burning sun or the downpour wherever they were found in the archipelago that fateful day. The voters’ turnout (38M) was high at 75 percent of the voting population. Many were dismayed though by the endless queues but a great number persevered to the end and experienced wholly or partially the novel way of voting electronically. And the entire nation was amazed –stunned by the quickness of knowing the results. By 11 p.m. the same day about 40 percent of the elections results were already made public and the ranks of winning national candidates were already established. Before midnight most of the elections in the local levels were already decided. In fact, in less than 24 after the close of the polling places, four presidential contenders already conceded defeat to the frontrunner. This was unprecedented in the 100-year history of Philippine politics. The gallant act added more credence to the integrity of the entire election exercise.
The many vociferous critics – journalists, opinion weavers, IT experts, church ministers and leaders, the business community, and the academics - were dumbstruck and were eating their words the day after. No doubt the operation of some PCOS machines experienced some glitches, but these were minimal and in most cases the kinks were ironed out before they could morph into a full-blown problem. There was no reported tampering of the machines, software hacking or hijacking in the transmission of the election results. It appeared that the system was almost foolproof as earlier assured by COMELEC and Smartmatic. There were, no doubts, some election-related violence, but they were very minimal, isolated and were effectively contained by the PNP and AFP and were only obtaining in places almost traditionally expected.
The last elections also displayed the ingenuity and resilience of the Filipino. Consider this. The Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine in my precinct would disgorge filled up official ballots fed into it. It was replaced by another unit. But the same problem occurred. After about two hours of trouble shooting, it was discovered that the ballots in that precinct were oversize (wider) and were therefore rejected by the very sensitive PCOS machine. So what one of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) members did to resume automated voting was to cut some 2 cm off from the right side of every ballot before she would feed the same to the machine. This worked out but slowed down the process by some 30 or more seconds/ballot and had also sacrificed secrecy. But who cared about secrecy at that time when the important concern was for everyone’s vote to be counted.
At the interim, some 60 of us in that precinct bypassed the PCOS machine and dropped our ballots directly to the ballot box to save on time. Being the head of the Roving PPCRV Team who happened to be on the spot, I suggested, and the BEI and all political party watchers agreed, that we go manual in the casting of ballots until such time that the machine would become functional. We further agreed that BEI would later feed the manually cast ballots to the PCOS machine even in our absence for registration/counting purposes. We had to move on.
In many other precincts, the PCOS machines jammed after about 200 ballots had passed through it and disorderly piled up inside the ballot box and eventually blocked incoming ones. The right solution was to open the box and rearrange the ballots. This was tedious and rather time consuming. The common option resorted to was to press the ballots down with a stick or a handle of a broom.
By all indications, the last elections were still not clean and honest. Vote buying in various forms remained unabated. This continues to be a formidable challenge for the redeemed COMELEC and the entire Filipino people to address to next time around. What was solved by the automation was cheating right there in the polls and in the canvassing of results. We no longer heard of ballot padding, ballot box snatching, dagdag-bawas maneuvers, and garci-like manipulations in frustrating the will of the people. The speed of the automation process left no rooms for the scoundrels to operate.
After all has been sad and done, the most maligned government institution of the season, the COMELEC, as well as its hardware and service provider, Smartmatic, its deputized agents, the PNP and the AFP, were all vindicated. They did a fantastic and fabulous job of conducting an orderly, peaceful, swift and credible election in an environment that oozed with intrigues, distrust, mocking, and black propaganda. Kudos are also due to the dutiful teachers, the different volunteer organizations like the PPCRV, the ABS CBN Boto Mo I-patrol Mo, the Citizen Crime Watch, the CVOs and barangay tanods, and many others who all worked hard to insure that the last elections were something that we all can be proud of. Mabuhay ang Filipino!
