Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)
January 17, 2011Brillantes should do right and be the opposite of the Melo-led Comelec - CenPEG
The Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) today challenged the new chairman of the Commission on Elections not to make haste in adopting the Smartmatic-provided automation technology for the coming elections.
The new Comelec chairman, Sixto Brillantes, Jr., should look into findings made by independent groups that assessed the conduct of the 2010 automated elections revealing fatal computer programming errors, vulnerabilities, and technical errors, Bobby Tuazon, political analyst of CenPEG, said.
Citing an analysis done by CenPEG IT consultant, Dr. Pablo Manalastas, Tuazon said the computer program used in the May 2010 elections was replete with “serious errors that may cause, and actually did cause, execution errors on election day.” In his own analysis of the U.S.-based SysTest Labs report on the review of the Smartmatic automation system and source code, Manalastas said the election-day errors were “evidenced by the PCOS program malfunctioning, the PCOS and CCS allowing transmission of FTS results, and a significant number of tabulation errors in the Comelec’s public website.”
This and other findings of CenPEG’s 600-page report on the May 2010 automated elections should be reason enough for the new Comelec chairman to put on hold whatever decisions had been made by the Comelec under the resigned head, Jose Melo, Tuazon said. The Comelec had previously declared it was going to use the same Smartmatic technology in the next elections.
“This is the best time for Mr. Brillantes to begin his term clean and transparent and to re-engineer the poll body by correcting its past mistakes including mismanaging the May 10 automated elections. The use of election automation should be seriously studied to ensure that the next polls would be trustworthy, secure, and transparent,” Tuazon added. “None of the legal violations, lack of safety measures, as well as non-transparency shown by the Melo Comelec should be allowed to happen again if and when poll automation is used once more.”
The new Comelec under Brillantes “must do right --and be the opposite of the Melo-chaired Comelec,” Tuazon said. One of the steps that the new Comelec chairman should do is to ensure that the Comelec complies with the rule of law, the most recent is is to release the source code as directed by the Supreme Court last Sept. 21 ordering the commissioners to make the software available for the review of CenPEG and other stakeholders, Tuazon added. Likewise, until now, none of the 20 other vital election documents ordered released by the high court in a similar case has been disclosed by the Comelec.
Tuazon also said that the new chair must guarantee the inclusion of independent CSOs, NGOs and other stakeholders in consultation processes about election technology and management that affect the security and accuracy of the voting system. The assessment of the May 2010 elections must also be done by an independent body, outside of the Comelec and its contracted groups that helped market and promote the Smartmatic-propelled May 2010 elections. This way, Tuazon said, the Philippine government and the Filipino electorate are provided with objective studies of the elections.
The CenPEG Report was released last December with copies already submitted to Congress and other key stakeholders. Among other findings, the report revealed high incidence of machine breakdowns, transmission failures, and voters’ disenfranchisement owing to hours of long queues of voters transpiring nationwide on May 10.
“The problem with Comelec’s claim of election success is that it was based on ‘quick results’ while hiding the system-wide glitches and errors that tended to question the integrity, reliability, and security of the election results,” he said.
CenPEG, along with other conveners of the Automated Election System Watch (AES Watch), have called for the junking of the Smartmatic’s PCOS technology. Election is a vital democratic process that must not be outsourced to foreign companies whose concern is mainly to make profits regardless of the outcome of elections, CenPEG and AES Watch conveners have said.
Last week, AES Watch called for the inclusion of IT competence as a one of the requirements for appointing Comelec commissioners. The new members who will replace two retiring commissioners should at least have IT expertise and known for their independence, non-partisanship, and competence – qualities found wanting in the Melo-led Comelec, the broad citizens’ election watchdog said.
For details, please call:
CenPEG Tel. 9299526 3/F CSWCD Bldg., Magsaysay Avenue, UP Diliman, Quezon City / info@cenpeg.org; cenpeg.info@gmail.com