When Your Customer is the Government

Imagine the Philippine government transform itself into a single living, breathing member of the human population. It would be the most irrational, most indecisive and ultimately most annoying of all customers in your local supermarket.

With all the frenzy surrounding the national elections on alleged vote-rigging, I wouldn't be surprised if Smartmatic's CEO Cesar Flores is at his wits end trying his very best to please the Filipino people. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if he would curse us under his breath after a stressful ambush interview. The customer is king after all, and it's usually near impossible for kings to be pleased. Let alone be nice about it.

There is nothing wrong with questioning the results of the automated election as is the case with Jamby Madrigal, Nicanor Perlas and JC delos Reyes. Neither is there anything wrong with a possible whistle-blower coming out into the open. Skepticism, in fact, is often a precursor to truth.

I'm only wondering, with all the accusations thrown to COMELEC, what signals are we trying to give foreign investors with how we run our country? The peso has slightly slipped. Exactly how much economic side effects are we willing to take in the name of skepticism?

Is the Filipino Really Worth Dying For?

Standing in the middle of NAIA Terminal 3, I always pause and pay a little tribute to this statue of late Ninoy Aquino. He is both my hero and personal benchmark for servant leadership. So when my brother and I arrived at the airport this morning, I looked at it and for the first time, my heart felt a sickening sadness.

I thought the Filipinos wanted change. With all hope and possitivity, I fully believed we deserved better leaders, sustainable development and democracy. It breaks my heart to be proven otherwise.

Re-electionists lead the top six in the senatoriable race. Ousted President and known jueteng protector Joseph Estrada is ranked second among the Presidentiables. And Noynoy Aquino, no less than my hero's own son, is off to bag the Presidency. It pierces me to the bones knowing fully well that in all 12 years that Noynoy has been a senator, he hasn't passed a single bill into law. He hasn't occupied any executive position prior to being a senator. He hasn't even distributed the land many farmers have shed their blood for in the Hacienda Luisita massacre.

And he is going to be my President in the next 6 years. Perchance to dream of a well-deserved democracy. :c

I Voted, Have You?

In all fairness, I'm quite satisfied with how the elections started in my hometown this morning. I was the thirteenth voter in the precinct and although the elementary school teachers still needed lessons on proper queuing, I was glad to see the PCOS machine read my ballot and tell me that my vote was successful.

I'm not sure if it will count the votes right this time, but I'm optimistic. There hasn't been any power outages since Saturday. The townsfolk have been patiently waiting for their turn and I'm happy to see teenagers, kids younger than me, excited to participate in the elections and indirectly shape the future of our country.

There's nothing like fresh idealism to perk up my morning. :)

The infamous PCOS machine itself

Voters searching for their names and numbers.

On Pinoy Politics, IT Audit and Internal Control

Is it just me or does anyone else find the anomalies in the PCOS machines downright suspicious?

Last Monday, several precinct count optical scan (PCOS) units failed to count votes accurately which forced Smartmatic, the government's contractor for the automated elections, to recall all compact flash cards and to halt scheduled delivery to Davao City and other provinces.

A news article in Manila Bulletin cited that the camp of mayoral candidate Lito Atienza noted that PCOS machines failed to read votes for the position of mayor in at least 80 percent of the tests. In Taguig, congressional candidate Angelito “Jett” Reyes claimed PCOS machines failed to read his votes and in Pateros, incumbent Pateros Mayor Joey Medina reported that half of the PCOS machines tested for the whole town printed incorrect results.

Smartmatic claims the glitches were caused by human error and dispels rumors that it was part and parcel of a plan to sabotage our national elections. To me, it's either the company's programmer is stupid or the glitches were indeed intentional. Even my brother, who majored in Computer Science, told me any ComSci freshman could have prevented errors as gross as those. I doubt that such a high-profile multinational company will hire an idiot, but what is unclear to me is why such irregularities were publicly committed on certain test-runs.

After the incident, The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) have recalled memory cards sent to 76, 300 precincts all over the archipelago and have allied with private corporations to deliver the replacement cards back to said precincts. Could it be that the original cards were properly configured and that the COMELEC or whoever it is behind the conspiracy(?) needed a valid excuse to allow them to recall the cards and replace them with cheated ones? Of course, this is just me overthinking things.

I am not a programmer or a systems analyst like my brother, but five years in accounting taught me that there is what we call an information technology audit. Similar to the financial statement audit which is what most of my classmates do in SGV, IT audit is a form of attestation engagement the main purpose of which is to evaluate a system's internal control design and effectiveness.

Tell me, has anyone audited the PCOS machines to be used on Monday? Anyone with an ISACA certification at all?

With news about the PCOS machines going hay-wire, I understand why Joseph Estrada urges the COMELEC to reconsider its position on parallel manual counting. In both automated count and manual count, the numbers should balance, so to speak. But with a history on dagdag-bawas, I think this form of internal control will never achieve its objective and will only add fire to the people's suspicion on vote-rigging.

I empathize with Bro. Eddie Villanueva when he called for a one-week poll postponement so that the COMELEC can address the PCOS anomalies. But not unless Bagyong Ondoy comes back to haunt us on Monday, I don't think the national elections will be delayed for any purpose other than force majeure.

Although I would have wanted a thorough IT audit to be done and made public, there just isn't any time for that. The national elections will push through. Yet for whatever technological excuse -- from glitches in the PCOS machines to a possible power outage in Mindanao -- if a failure of automation ensues, what difference will there be between that and a failure of election in the eyes of Filipinos who have grown jaded and suspicious after many years of poverty and corruption? After all, in a democratic country such as ours, the results of whichever election is just as good as the reliability of the electoral process itself.

Emmeline Pankhurst

I was googling some old articles regarding the suffrage of women when I stumbled upon this picture of Emmeline Pankhurst. The description says she's being arrested after leading a protest to parliament, armed with a rolled resolution for women's suffrage and a few lilies of the valley. What struck me in the photo was the pride on her face. Such fierceness and defiance.

Similar to Pankhurst's British suffrage movement, women in the Philippines have only been granted the right to vote on 1937, thirty years after the first election law was passed and forty years after Emilio Aguinaldo was elected President at the Tejeros Convention.

I salute all the nameless Filipinas who fought for my own suffrage. And like Emmeline Pankhurst, I hope I will look as proud and defiant when I cast my vote on Monday morning.