Melo's legacy
By Rene B. Azurin
Strategic Perspective, BusinessWorld
Posted by CenPEG
January 21, 2011

Advocates of any sort of meaningful reform in this country sooner or later get resigned to the fact that the effort is all too quixotic, windmills can’t be moved by men dreaming impossible dreams while wielding bamboo lances. Those who had hoped for real electoral reform with the appointment, some three years ago, of former Justice Jose Melo as Commission on Elections chairman now view his departure with that kind of resignation. His term has produced exactly the same outcome -- a rigged election -- as that of his reviled predecessor.

There is a wide disconnect between what Mr. Melo thinks he has accomplished as Comelec chairman and what independent observers and information technology experts who closely monitored the May 2010 elections say about it. Mr. Melo is quoted as saying, "I am stepping down confident in the knowledge that the country’s first automated elections held last May 10 had led to one of the most credible and unquestionable poll results in the nation’s history." Contrast that statement with that of political analyst Bobby Tuazon of the Diliman-based policy research group Center for People Empowerment in Governance, or CenPEG, who pointedly -- and (I suppose) hopefully -- advised the incoming Comelec chairman that he "must do right -- and be the opposite of the Melo-chaired Comelec." Or with that of Transparency International-Philippines president Judge Dolores Español who charged Comelec with hiding from the public the real truth behind the glitches of the automated election system and said (of the May 2010 automated polls), "The Comelec has been the most un-transparent in the whole election exercise." Other observers have, more bluntly, branded what Mr. Melo -- and his merry band of commissioners -- accomplished as "a criminal act."

The most intensive independent monitoring of the 2010 poll automation exercise was conducted by CenPEG in a project (Project 30-30) funded by the European Union and the European Institute for Democracy and Human Rights. Covering a two-year period commencing at the start of the automation process in 2008, the study involved a research team made up of social, political, and information technology experts from both the academe and industry. The study quickly attracted the support and cooperation of a broad assemblage of groups from both the private and public sectors and these coalesced into what became the independent election watchdog Automated Election System Watch (AES Watch). National coverage of the election was thus provided by assorted groups of academics, professionals, citizens’ organizations, church groups, lawyers’ groups, and national organizations of IT practitioners in the country. Last November, CenPEG released its 485-page concluding report (the last of six) on the 2010 polls.

The CenPEG report lists numerous facts and occurrences that demonstrate the failure of the automated election system implemented by Mr. Melo’s Comelec "to operate properly, securely, and accurately." Summarizing its findings based on actual incidents and analyses, CenPEG found: "Mismatched time and date stamps on all PCOS [Precinct Count Optical Scanner] machines; transmission failures; erroneous COCs [Certificates of Canvas] in at least 57 provinces and cities; ballots and CF [compact flash memory] cards delivered manually for canvassing; discovery of the [unauthorized] console port in all machines making the PCOS vulnerable to tampering; erroneous entries of total number of voters and votes cast in the national canvassing center and Congress; near anarchy in the clustered precincts; and, not to forget, the pre-election incidence of defective CF cards." These "disturbing findings" were confirmed to have "occurred nationwide" and "were validated again in congressional hearings, investigations, and Project 30-30 post-May 10 case studies." According to CenPEG, "All of these have tainted the integrity, credibility, and accuracy of the PCOS machines and the election system."

More tellingly, CenPEG accuses Comelec of sacrificing "the more fundamental imperatives of accuracy, security, transparency, and reliability" in order (presumably) to prioritize "speed." In this presumed quest for speed -- the motivations might actually have been more sinister and nefarious -- CenPEG finds that Comelec "practically abdicated its role as the principal Election Manager." Effectively leaving everything in the hands of "untested" technology supplier Smartmatic eventually led to "removing vital [security] mechanisms, shortcutting procedures, glossing over voter’s rights and the principle of ‘secret voting, public counting’ and, inevitably, bypassing strict constitutional and legal requirements."

Comelec’s relationship with Smartmatic -- "a Venezuelan firm with reported American connections" -- had been suspicious from the outset. Comelec’s bending over backward to accommodate Smartmatic -- adjusting pre-qualification requirements to favor Smartmatic, agreeing to one of the "sweetest" payment terms ever, neglecting to hold Smartmatic accountable for failing to meet various delivery commitments, changing rules and allowing Smartmatic "to call the shots almost every step of the way", etc. -- was obvious. It is clear that the Comelec-Smartmatic relationship was not that of the normal client-supplier setup. In fact, the dominance of Smartmatic in the relationship with Comelec suggests a somewhat familiar kind of conspiracy theory.

"Until now," CenPEG accuses, "Comelec cannot even explain convincingly how and why election results reached national canvassing servers so fast -- starting even an hour before the official closure of voting -- when the automated election system at the precinct level was hounded by technical breakdowns and irregularities." Hmmm, how indeed?

Mr. Melo says that "the next chairman faces the challenge of sustaining the gains of the past years and instituting further reforms to safeguard the sanctity of our country’s electoral process." Gains? What gains? The windmill didn’t move. Mr. Melo’s term as Comelec chairman has been a backward step in our country’s movement toward electoral reform. Moreover, Mr. Melo’s actuations as Comelec chairman showed no indication that he cared at all about safeguarding "the sanctity of our country’s electoral process." In fact, he not only permitted a foreign firm to violate it, he also allowed that foreign firm to spirit away P7.2 billion of the people’s money in the process.

Despite a Supreme Court decision directing the Comelec to release crucial election documents and data to various petitioning groups, Mr. Melo’s Comelec continues -- some four months after the order was issued -- to just refuse to do so. This is nothing less than criminal. Says CenPEG, "The right to public information suffered with Comelec’s lack of transparency." Definitely. Concludes CenPEG, "Its lack of transparency left the majority of the electorate misinformed and uniformed, duped by the illusion about automated elections modernizing democracy and weeding out fraud." Oh yes.

That’s some legacy, Mr. Melo.