MAPping the Future
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Iran 2009-What it Portends for RP 2010?
By Felicito C. Payumo
June 29, 2009
While tracking the unfolding turmoil in Iran, I could not help being spooked by the images of the bloody streets of Teheran segueing to Manila and the provinces. Not this year, but next!
Watching the youth and the educated middle class of Teheran and other cities with only sticks and stones to match the arms and truncheons of the police and militia was an explosive event that surprised everyone outside Iran. Since the revolution of 1979 that deposed the Sha, the people of Iran had long been suppressed and repressed by the ruling theocracy, and the educated middle class was the least likely to march and shout “Death to Khamenei.” What triggered the turmoil? A mere allegation of fraud by the camp of losing presidential candidate, Mir Hossein Moussavi, could not have been the fuse. After all, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, favored by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had won by more than 11 million votes! Had he won by only a million votes, an allegation of cheating could be taken seriously. But 11 million votes? Clearly, the election results were legitimate, Khamenei intoned.
Telltale Signs
But the suspicion of a rigged election gained credence. Since the revolution of 1979, Iranian rulers had valued the importance of fair and clean elections because it was essential for the legitimacy of the system. While some retail cheating at the precinct level was conceded, it was only in the last election that a charge of widespread rigging had stuck. Why? Because telltale signs could not be ignored. Foreign journalists were banned and reports of ballot box stuffing circulated. Was it simply hubris or a deliberate insult to the intelligence of the Iranian voters that reelectionist President Ahmadinejad did not care how they would take an unprecedented 85 per cent voters turn out, split 63 to 32 percent in his favor? Asked how that could be possible, his camp’s answer merely begged the question, “If people did not trust the election, there would not have been such a high turnout.” But so obvious was the fraud that even clerics were split and two ex-Presidents who had sympathized with the reformists had a brother and a daughter arrested for joining the protests. . Millions of Iranians did not buy the Ayatollah’s declaration that the the election of Ahmadinejad was a Divine Sanction. To them, the regime has lost its legitimacy. It was no longer the personality of the candidates but the integrity of the elections that mattered. Believing that their votes were stolen, they waved placards asking, “where is my vote?”
In an effort to mollify the people, the Guardian Council admitted irregularities in 50 of 170 districts including vote counts that exceeded the number of registered voters but said they would not have affected the final result. It declared that there was no “major fraud,” so a new election was ruled out.
2010 Philippine Elections
The above account was not meant to draw a parallel with past Philippine elections. Rather, it is to depict what the events in Iran portend if we are not able to conduct a clean, fair, and most important, transparent elections in 2010. In Iran, it was the allegation of a rigged election that caused the streets to explode. In the Philippines, it is the lack of transparency in the automated election system in 2010 that could trigger mayhem not just in the cities but in the provinces.
Automated Elections
Earlier, we endorsed the TransparentElections.org system that uses manual voting and counting at the precinct level but automated canvassing from precinct, to municipal, provincial, city and national levels. The reasons were:
1. Cost- The big budget of P11.3 Billion would not be all required if only the canvassing is automated. Ordinary PCs can replace the 82,000 costly PICOS machines. Encoders can upload the ERs to the Web at each level using Excel, a software that computer literate students are familiar with. The public, including the OFWs, will have immediate access to the results via the web.
Spending P7.2 Billion for acquiring PICOS machines for voting and counting in order to save a few hours out of the 12 hours needed for the manual process flies in the face of the Pareto Principle! What cries out to be automated is the manual canvassing of votes that takes the rest of the 45 days to complete. Automating the canvassing process with the use of less costly PCs will reduce the entire election timeline to only a week, and cost to P2 million at the most.
2. Tight schedule- Through no fault of the COMELEC, the budget for automation was approved late by Congress that left COMELEC only a few months to bid out the automation project, award the contract, manufacture the 82,000 units, deliver, test, and deploy them, train 40,000 technicians, 500,000 teachers, and 40 million voters who will have to shade ovals for the first time on 1,610 versions of ballots with pre-printed names of national and local candidates in small font due to the large number of candidates and party lists, assure that there are no errors in printing and delivery of the ballots, and pray to God that no hitches happen at each step of the way! Whew! COMELEC Chairman Melo’s nightmare is understandable. Hitches may happen on a scale that spells “failure of elections“. Blame should be shared by its Technical Advisory Board. They could not have been that clueless of these risks!
But, as we have seen, Murphy’s Law was already operative at the very start- during the test of 10 sample units! Smoke belched out from a unit being tested at controlled environment. Smartmatic was quick to promise “they’d bring the right cable next time.” Still, the test involved only a few units. Imagine testing and deploying 82,000 units from Aparri to Jolo at actual conditions.
3. And last, but most important, is the element of transparency, or the lack of it. Even, assuming we beat Murphy’s Law, the voters will not witness the counting process - an event everyone looks forward to during elections. After everyone has cast his ballot, the machine will automatically count the votes, and the results posted at designated places. For the first time, the voters will not see a running score with taras on blackboards; they will read the printed results only at the end of the game. Will the people accept such results? What if they are contrary to their expectations? Will we see placards all over the country also asking “where is my vote?” Can this trigger violence from losing local candidates?
And we are not even talking about what experts say is a possibility- electronic tampering with the results-and not necessarily by outside hackers.
And how does a candidate file an electoral protest? I have seen the importance of manually written ballots in the last elections when all three opposition candidates for Mayor in Bataan who filed their protests were able to prove thousands of ballots as fraudulent, e.g. one hand on several ballots from different precincts or municipalities, two or three hands on the same ballot, etc. The cases are now with the COMELEC. Experts can easily determine if the handwriting was done by the same or different hands. But how to detect fraudulent ballots by examining shaded ovals?
It’s the recourse to an electoral protest that opens a vent for losing candidates who feel cheated to let off steam while entertaining some hope. Close it and you push them to a violent course.
Difference in Crowd Handling between RP and Iran
Had Ayatollah Khamenei not boxed himself in a corner by calling a stop to the street protests and issuing a severe warning that protesters will be held accountable, the violence would not have escalated. The warning was what the protesters wanted. Not only did the street crowds grow larger, others joined on rooftops. But having issued the warning, Khamenei had no choice but to let loose his militia to violently break up the crowds, and the melee ensued. Already, 17 protesters had been killed including a young lady named Neda whose face has become the symbol of the protest.
MetroManila, particularly Makati, on the other hand, has so far exercised restraint in handling protesting crowds. The last rally on Ayala-Paseo against the ConAss showed the maturity of both Police and crowd. There was no casualty except some bored faces that perked up only when the duo of Juana Change and Pak Yu came on stage to dish out jokes. But others thought that was counterproductive- the skit lowered the temperature of what others believed should have been a grim and serious protest. The clerics of Iran can also learn a thing or two from our comedian in the House who warned the crowd against linking arms and making beso beso lest they spread the swine flu. Trivializing a rally is smarter than dispersing it.
2010 is Different
Just as the resolution on the ConAss serves only as the House expression of intent to violate the Constitution, as Father Bernas has put it, the protest rallies against ConAss also serve only as warning against the Administration that it will be opposed. There is nothing justiciable yet. That explains the tame atmosphere of the rally. For how does one summon up enough passion to fight a mere intent? Hence the rallies became a “show your face” type of social gatherings especially for the Presidentiables.
But lest the Authorities mistake the tame rallies against ConAss as a sign that Filipinos have lost their capacity for outrage, the conduct of the automated elections in 2010 is different. It is a watershed in the history of Philippine elections. Successfully implemented, and perceived to have been fair, clean, honest, and transparent, the elections will be the crowning achievement of President GMA and the COMELEC. But mishandled, it can be a deluge that will engulf us all.
As we wish the COMELEC under the leadership of Chairman Melo our best in implementing the conduct of the first nationwide automated election, we urge them now to seriously work on the offer of support from the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) in devising a parallel fallback system. COMELEC should do a weekly, or at least, monthly check on its schedule, so that should there be a major delay, it can decide whether it is still feasible to continue, or abort the PCOS implementation. That’s the only way the parallel fallback system can take over without any hitch. Not when it’s too late. Otherwise, COMELEC will not be perceived as serious in having a fallback strategy.
F. C. Payumo was a three- term Representative of the 1st District of Bataan and a former Chairman and Administrator of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority. He is currently Chairman of the Board of the University of Nueva Caceres.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Iran 2009-What it Portends for RP 2010?
By Felicito C. Payumo
June 29, 2009
While tracking the unfolding turmoil in Iran, I could not help being spooked by the images of the bloody streets of Teheran segueing to Manila and the provinces. Not this year, but next!
Watching the youth and the educated middle class of Teheran and other cities with only sticks and stones to match the arms and truncheons of the police and militia was an explosive event that surprised everyone outside Iran. Since the revolution of 1979 that deposed the Sha, the people of Iran had long been suppressed and repressed by the ruling theocracy, and the educated middle class was the least likely to march and shout “Death to Khamenei.” What triggered the turmoil? A mere allegation of fraud by the camp of losing presidential candidate, Mir Hossein Moussavi, could not have been the fuse. After all, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, favored by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had won by more than 11 million votes! Had he won by only a million votes, an allegation of cheating could be taken seriously. But 11 million votes? Clearly, the election results were legitimate, Khamenei intoned.
Telltale Signs
But the suspicion of a rigged election gained credence. Since the revolution of 1979, Iranian rulers had valued the importance of fair and clean elections because it was essential for the legitimacy of the system. While some retail cheating at the precinct level was conceded, it was only in the last election that a charge of widespread rigging had stuck. Why? Because telltale signs could not be ignored. Foreign journalists were banned and reports of ballot box stuffing circulated. Was it simply hubris or a deliberate insult to the intelligence of the Iranian voters that reelectionist President Ahmadinejad did not care how they would take an unprecedented 85 per cent voters turn out, split 63 to 32 percent in his favor? Asked how that could be possible, his camp’s answer merely begged the question, “If people did not trust the election, there would not have been such a high turnout.” But so obvious was the fraud that even clerics were split and two ex-Presidents who had sympathized with the reformists had a brother and a daughter arrested for joining the protests. . Millions of Iranians did not buy the Ayatollah’s declaration that the the election of Ahmadinejad was a Divine Sanction. To them, the regime has lost its legitimacy. It was no longer the personality of the candidates but the integrity of the elections that mattered. Believing that their votes were stolen, they waved placards asking, “where is my vote?”
In an effort to mollify the people, the Guardian Council admitted irregularities in 50 of 170 districts including vote counts that exceeded the number of registered voters but said they would not have affected the final result. It declared that there was no “major fraud,” so a new election was ruled out.
2010 Philippine Elections
The above account was not meant to draw a parallel with past Philippine elections. Rather, it is to depict what the events in Iran portend if we are not able to conduct a clean, fair, and most important, transparent elections in 2010. In Iran, it was the allegation of a rigged election that caused the streets to explode. In the Philippines, it is the lack of transparency in the automated election system in 2010 that could trigger mayhem not just in the cities but in the provinces.
Automated Elections
Earlier, we endorsed the TransparentElections.org system that uses manual voting and counting at the precinct level but automated canvassing from precinct, to municipal, provincial, city and national levels. The reasons were:
1. Cost- The big budget of P11.3 Billion would not be all required if only the canvassing is automated. Ordinary PCs can replace the 82,000 costly PICOS machines. Encoders can upload the ERs to the Web at each level using Excel, a software that computer literate students are familiar with. The public, including the OFWs, will have immediate access to the results via the web.
Spending P7.2 Billion for acquiring PICOS machines for voting and counting in order to save a few hours out of the 12 hours needed for the manual process flies in the face of the Pareto Principle! What cries out to be automated is the manual canvassing of votes that takes the rest of the 45 days to complete. Automating the canvassing process with the use of less costly PCs will reduce the entire election timeline to only a week, and cost to P2 million at the most.
2. Tight schedule- Through no fault of the COMELEC, the budget for automation was approved late by Congress that left COMELEC only a few months to bid out the automation project, award the contract, manufacture the 82,000 units, deliver, test, and deploy them, train 40,000 technicians, 500,000 teachers, and 40 million voters who will have to shade ovals for the first time on 1,610 versions of ballots with pre-printed names of national and local candidates in small font due to the large number of candidates and party lists, assure that there are no errors in printing and delivery of the ballots, and pray to God that no hitches happen at each step of the way! Whew! COMELEC Chairman Melo’s nightmare is understandable. Hitches may happen on a scale that spells “failure of elections“. Blame should be shared by its Technical Advisory Board. They could not have been that clueless of these risks!
But, as we have seen, Murphy’s Law was already operative at the very start- during the test of 10 sample units! Smoke belched out from a unit being tested at controlled environment. Smartmatic was quick to promise “they’d bring the right cable next time.” Still, the test involved only a few units. Imagine testing and deploying 82,000 units from Aparri to Jolo at actual conditions.
3. And last, but most important, is the element of transparency, or the lack of it. Even, assuming we beat Murphy’s Law, the voters will not witness the counting process - an event everyone looks forward to during elections. After everyone has cast his ballot, the machine will automatically count the votes, and the results posted at designated places. For the first time, the voters will not see a running score with taras on blackboards; they will read the printed results only at the end of the game. Will the people accept such results? What if they are contrary to their expectations? Will we see placards all over the country also asking “where is my vote?” Can this trigger violence from losing local candidates?
And we are not even talking about what experts say is a possibility- electronic tampering with the results-and not necessarily by outside hackers.
And how does a candidate file an electoral protest? I have seen the importance of manually written ballots in the last elections when all three opposition candidates for Mayor in Bataan who filed their protests were able to prove thousands of ballots as fraudulent, e.g. one hand on several ballots from different precincts or municipalities, two or three hands on the same ballot, etc. The cases are now with the COMELEC. Experts can easily determine if the handwriting was done by the same or different hands. But how to detect fraudulent ballots by examining shaded ovals?
It’s the recourse to an electoral protest that opens a vent for losing candidates who feel cheated to let off steam while entertaining some hope. Close it and you push them to a violent course.
Difference in Crowd Handling between RP and Iran
Had Ayatollah Khamenei not boxed himself in a corner by calling a stop to the street protests and issuing a severe warning that protesters will be held accountable, the violence would not have escalated. The warning was what the protesters wanted. Not only did the street crowds grow larger, others joined on rooftops. But having issued the warning, Khamenei had no choice but to let loose his militia to violently break up the crowds, and the melee ensued. Already, 17 protesters had been killed including a young lady named Neda whose face has become the symbol of the protest.
MetroManila, particularly Makati, on the other hand, has so far exercised restraint in handling protesting crowds. The last rally on Ayala-Paseo against the ConAss showed the maturity of both Police and crowd. There was no casualty except some bored faces that perked up only when the duo of Juana Change and Pak Yu came on stage to dish out jokes. But others thought that was counterproductive- the skit lowered the temperature of what others believed should have been a grim and serious protest. The clerics of Iran can also learn a thing or two from our comedian in the House who warned the crowd against linking arms and making beso beso lest they spread the swine flu. Trivializing a rally is smarter than dispersing it.
2010 is Different
Just as the resolution on the ConAss serves only as the House expression of intent to violate the Constitution, as Father Bernas has put it, the protest rallies against ConAss also serve only as warning against the Administration that it will be opposed. There is nothing justiciable yet. That explains the tame atmosphere of the rally. For how does one summon up enough passion to fight a mere intent? Hence the rallies became a “show your face” type of social gatherings especially for the Presidentiables.
But lest the Authorities mistake the tame rallies against ConAss as a sign that Filipinos have lost their capacity for outrage, the conduct of the automated elections in 2010 is different. It is a watershed in the history of Philippine elections. Successfully implemented, and perceived to have been fair, clean, honest, and transparent, the elections will be the crowning achievement of President GMA and the COMELEC. But mishandled, it can be a deluge that will engulf us all.
As we wish the COMELEC under the leadership of Chairman Melo our best in implementing the conduct of the first nationwide automated election, we urge them now to seriously work on the offer of support from the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) in devising a parallel fallback system. COMELEC should do a weekly, or at least, monthly check on its schedule, so that should there be a major delay, it can decide whether it is still feasible to continue, or abort the PCOS implementation. That’s the only way the parallel fallback system can take over without any hitch. Not when it’s too late. Otherwise, COMELEC will not be perceived as serious in having a fallback strategy.
F. C. Payumo was a three- term Representative of the 1st District of Bataan and a former Chairman and Administrator of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority. He is currently Chairman of the Board of the University of Nueva Caceres.
