Comelec fails to update House on P11B automation fund status

By Gerry Baldo

02/10/2010

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has failed to comply with its duty to update the House of Representatives on the status of the P11 billion fund appropriated for the purchase of the automated counting machines (ACM).

According to Speaker Prospero Nograles, Comelec Chairman Jose Melo earlier had promised to keep the House informed of the developments regarding the poll automation project, but to this day, neither he, nor the other commissioners, has done so.

Nograles said that he has some fears on the high probability of a failure of elections.

“I have some fears because Comelec has not reported to the leadership of Congress regarding the status of automation which Congress approved with P11 billion in funds,” Nograles said yesterday.

Nueva Ecija Rep. Edno Joson said President Arroyo will most likely extend her stay in Malacañang if there will be a failure of elections on May 10.

Joson claimed that a failure of elections would work for President Arroyo, pointing out that a situation where the winning candidates for president and vice president could not be determined would give Arroyo an excuse to stay in office beyond the expiration of her term on June 30.

Joson has authored a bill that would include senators and justices of the Supreme Court (SC) in the line of succession aside from the vice president, the chief justice of the SC, Senate President and the Speaker.

Nograles said the Comelec should do as mandated to ensure honest and peaceful elections.

“The Comelec must assure this nation that there won’t be a failure (of elections). It is their mandate to do so,” Nograles stressed.

Other allies of President Arroyo in the House, however, maintained that a failure of elections is not going to happen.

Deputy Speaker for Women Rep. Ma. Amelita Villarosa expressed belief that there will be no failure of elections.

“There will be no failure of elections. Besides, our Constitution has provisions on who will take over in cases like failure of elections,” said Villarosa.

The Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) meanwhile yesterday announced that it will not take part in the “source code review” called by the Comelec to study the software program of the May 10 automated election system (AES).

The source code is the human-readable computer program that will run Comelec’s 82,000 voting and counting machines in addition to other canvassing computers. Without a thorough review, estimated to take at least three months done by 30 to 40 IT programmers, nobody will be able to detect the malicious codes and bugs inserted. This will make the system vulnerable to internal rigging and other manipulations.

A letter addressed to Melo and signed by CenPEG chairman and others said Comelec’s 9-point guidelines on the review put undue pressure on the reviewers of interested parties and groups, such as time constraint, close watch, and other restrictions. The Comelec review also prohibits any modification to the source code so that any malicious codes found would leave the software virtually without any safeguard thus compromising the integrity of the code, the CenPEG letter also said.

At this point, the letter which was also signed by CenPEG executive director Evita Jimenez and Fellow for IT Dr. Pablo Manalastas, said, the AES internal system “is now deemed more open to greater vulnerability. Poll watching then would be more confined to observing the external workings of the AES.”

In a related development, poll watchdog-Bantay Eleksyon warned that it expects heightened violence as politicians resort to intimidation and harassment to cheat in the 2010 automated elections.

From January 2009 up to present, a total of 93 election-related killings occurred all over the country.

Ramon Casiple, convenor of Bantay Eleksyon said that since local officials do not have the means and the capabilities to cheat the automated elections system, “they would try to manipulate factors outside the system --the voters --to put them at an advantage during the May 10 polls.” With Marie Surbano and Tribune wires

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