The Senate presidency

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

The Senate presidency
Sunday, 07 11, 2010

Except for the occasional upset stomach, there seems to be nothing wrong with the health of the new President. The new vice president, too, is obviously hale and hearty, especially now that he’s not going to have rashes because he’s moving to the Coconut Palace. So the talk of a yet to be elected Senate president eventually succeeding to the presidency is a long shot—nay, impossibility—within the next six years of the Aquino administration.

What is important here and now is the issue of qualification and acceptability. Can the next Senate president succeed in maneuvering with skill and care the expected internecine dissensions of our present crop of senators as they discharge their role in nation building, pursue an agenda of reform and change, at the same time uphold the independence of the chamber?

This ability to keep things on an even keel should be the primary consideration in the determination of who should lead the Senate in the Fifteenth Congress.

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Closeness to the President of the country is a disqualifier. A senator who himself admits to having asked the permission and blessing of President Aquino to run for Senate president only betrays his dependency on the President. Notice the word: dependency, as in a need for an authority figure so strong that it becomes necessary to have this figure prompting and guiding one in order to function properly.

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And I fear what would happen if the relationship turns into a co-dependency. Political analyst Leina de Legazpi says, “Surely, we’ll have a pattern of detrimental executive-legislative interactions within a dysfunctional political relationship.” Or as one senator succinctly points out, “If you have a Senate controlled by Aquino, where is the [expletive muffled] independence?”

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Tough talk makes a good campaign pitch. So the chosen candidate of the Liberal Party (LP) for Senate president says he will constitute an “activist” Senate, one that “seeks solutions to the nation's decades-old ills.” But these words are mere sound and fury, cock-and-bull, when measured against past performance.

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For instance, can a senator do well as Senate president and truly lead a Senate of the people, when he had been responsible for foisting on the nation a bogus president when he just smugly noted the massive fraud in a previous electoral exercise?

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May a senator, who has contributed nothing significant in the various investigations in aid of legislation conducted by the Senate, be expected to be an activist leader of a Senate that is transparent and accessible to our countrymen?

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May a senator responsible for squelching many activist initiatives of the Senate—for instance, the pursuit of criminal action against those responsible for the forgery of documents in the National Archives to question the citizenship of a presidential candidate—be expected, like the anecdotal tiger, to change his predatory stripes and now maneuver the Senate to take a different tack in similar situations confronting it?

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May a senator who, because of his immaturity and lack of anything between his ears, dawdled and dallied and did not have any significant part in the harvest of legislative initiatives contributory to education upgrading, poverty alleviation, peacebuilding, etcetera, have the expertise and gravitas to claim that the Senate under his leadership would be productive at all?

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The nation needs a Senate president like this like it needs a hole in the head.

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What the nation needs is an independent reformist Senate. It is the only institution that can stand up to the other institutions of government. No institution could effectively perform a check-and-balance function other than the Senate.

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And at the helm of the Senate must be an intelligent senator with an independent mind, someone who could ride into the storm with concentration; present with determination a genuine and strategic legislative reform agenda; see things with clarity and foresight; and with calm tenacity, prioritize laws that will propel the country’s growth, create jobs and ensure the delivery of basic social services.

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That’s a tall order, but it fits nicely with what Senator Edgardo Angara said in a recent statement: “For the Senate presidency, we’re looking for someone who will uphold the dignity and independence of the institution, who will lead a reformist agenda and someone who will not just criticize for the sake of criticism. We will pick someone who will act for the higher interest of our country and the Senate as an institution.”

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Way back in the Ninth Congress (1992-1995), Angara led a Senate independent of the Executive. That Senate then was an activist legislature, churning out a host of reform bills signed into law by President Ramos (who belonged to another party), and catapulted the country to new heights, not the least of which was being brought right to the doorsteps of the exclusive club of tiger economies. Despite this legislative-executive rapproachement, Ramos was not spared the knives of the senators probing into the shenanigans in his administration.

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We are now in the Fifteenth Congress, 15 years later. The LP of President Aquino has only 4 members in the Senate. Obviously, they cannot elect a Senate president. If the mood of the voters who elected the 20 other senators not belonging to the LP is to be honored in these people-empowered times (“Kayo ang boss ko”), the choice of Senate president should not be on the behest of Malacañang. The LP should not tamper with that, by bringing the weight of President Aquino or the presumptive closeness of a party member to him.

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Let a non-LP senator be the Senate president. Only with him can the Senate be truly the people’s voice, an effective and productive partner of President Aquino in nation building. Last but best of all, with a non-LP Senate head, the people would have the calm assurance that no quarters will be given to accommodate, or play footsie with, any one in or out of the Executive department who might be tempted to reprise a Jocjoc, a Garci, or a Neri.

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Letter to President Aquino

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Letter to President Aquino
Sunday, 07 04, 2010

Dear President Aquino:

Forgive me for not addressing you by the moniker that millions of Filipinos now seem to have embraced in reference to you. I am referring to the hyphenated P-Noy, a term coined when the incontrovertibility of winning was a clear and present blessing and no longer an arguable proposition. You have campaigned as Noynoy, true. And I could bet that somewhere in our archipelago of 7,700 islands inhabited by 94 million Filipinos, there are still quite a good number who do not know that your full name is Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III.

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You are and always will be Noynoy to millions, and now that you are president what could come easier and smoother to the tongue than P-Noy? Admittedly, if one cares to style your initials in the fashion of that which the press and obsequious staffers referred your predecessor, the P-Noy tag is much better. Could you imagine PBSCA III? Horrific! Or BCA, as in the FVR of President Ramos? Not likely. With P-Noy, the assonance is so euphonious that the term becomes at once a contraction of Pinoy, the popular term which we Filipinos now proudly call ourselves here and abroad. So by clever coinage: P-Noy. P(resident) Noy(noy), the current iteration of the proud Pinoy. P-Noy, President of the Philippines.

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It saddens me sometimes that we Pinoys have arrived at a stage in our culture where addressing people by their formal names is taken as a sign of condescension or snobbishness. “Hey, Cruz, could you see me at my office?” would strike an offended chord in one’s self-esteem, so we go: “Hey, Johnny, could you see me at my office?” There — that’s betterer, as my friend Leina de Legazpi would say; it doesn’t smack of any hint of haughtiness that, our ancestors used to think, characterized the speech of our former imperious, patronizing colonists when they addressed the peasantry.
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Oh, we’d like to be known as a race of smiling people whose very pores are oozing with friendliness on every occasion. So we prefer the familiar to the formal. We become so cloyingly familiar and friendly with our public officials that it becomes de rigueur to address our mayors as Jojo, our undersecretaries as Jocjoc, and our senators as Nene even in instances when the form of address or honorific for the official rank demands it. I can almost imagine it: “Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honor and privilege for me to introduce…P-Noy!” Or in news bulletins: “P-Noy yesterday announced that it is the foremost duty of his government to lift the nation from poverty through honest and effective governance.” I wonder how we sound to other nations when they hear, or read, about this reverse condescension!

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Or, is it just me who is uneasy about this widespread usage? After all we saw Dwight Eisenhower in the ’50s referred to as Ike and, of recent memory, Corazon Aquino as, in endearing fashion, Cory.
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But P-Noy? Maybe I’ve grown much too plebeian or too philistine in my tastes, but the appellation simply sticks in my throat. I know I’m swimming against the tide here and would probably lose a handful of friends in my profession and in this vocation that currently finds untrammelled expression in The Daily Tribune, but I find the appellation d’origine controlee, as it were, (if we were talking about wines) too heady and difficult or impossible to accept.

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However, the supposedly endearing term has been unleashed and has become a pervasive idiolect, an accepted coinage among those who voted you into office. It is now my fervent hope that someone in Malacañang would write a nicely worded, fine-tuned circular to the members of the working press that the term sounds too contrived (or too jejemon, as our youngsters would say) and an unceasing repetition of it might eventually become a source of continuing annoyance to those in your official family, if not you yourself, Mr. President.

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Having unloaded that silly baggage off my chest, Mr. President, let me tell you that even people in this part of the world, Kyrgyzstan, where I’m writing from, were properly impressed by your inaugural address, even when I had to grope for the right idiom in English to translate to them your forceful Pilipino. Thanks to the WorldWideWeb we were just a mouse-click away from history being made in the Philippines. Later, we watched you on YouTube gamely singing a melodiously tricky song that was aptly titled “Watch What Happens.” And juxtaposing speech to song, they told me: “This president bears watching.”
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Mr. President, we will watch you from now on. Never mind if the first 100 days of your administration is supposed to be a period of grace, a traditional honeymoon, an initial period of intense approval and goodwill accorded to presidents at the start of their jobs. We, the Filipino nation — your boss as you yourself said so — have scarce time to wait and see. Our watch has begun.

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We will watch you because the Filipino people believe in you and you let them hold your outstretched hand.

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We will watch you because the heart of the nation resonate to your campaign battle cry that there is no poverty if the government is graft-free.

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We will watch you because you have promised the beginning of a regime that is not deaf and dumb to the appeals of the people.
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We will watch you not because our eyes are still bedazzled and bewitched by the Cory Magic, but because we are resolved, as you are perhaps equally determined, not to break our hearts or dash our hopes again.

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Yes, Mr. President, we will watch what happens, and we hope that we will be there — as active participant or thankful beneficiary — when it happens.

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Binay: Man of the Moment

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Binay: Man of the Moment
Sunday, 06 13, 2010

Forty-four years ago, in 1966, Jejomar Cabauatan Binay was one of those juvenile, irrepressible, slogan-chanting students who picketed the Manila Hotel and embarrassed the then occupant of Malacanang when they harangued visiting US President Lyndon Johnson with the chant, “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” during the Philippines-Indonesia-Malaysia- Thailand Summit Conference.

Forty years later, in 2006, a more grown-up but still irrepressible Binay again embarrassed another occupant of Malacanang, when he barricaded himself inside the Makati City Hall in defiance of a suspension order that was a transparent maneuver of the Palace to distract attention from its own scandals. The stand-off would have sparked an ugly, rebellion among Makati’s poor had not the court issued an injunctive order, thereby preventing the Office of the President from enforcing its suspension order.

Three months ago, Binay was a dark rider on a pale horse - a “maiden,” in the lingo of racehorse owners­ - who, almost unobtrusively, took his place among jockey thoroughbreds, two of them senators of national reknown, at the starting line in the race for the vice-presidential position. Binay was even handicapped by a black propaganda of having played “stud” to some other filly, an issue that was promptly squelched by an honest, manful admission.

Five weeks ago, who would ever think that Binay, who spurred his horse with a leisurely trot, would find his full gallop at the homestretch and outrun the seasoned thoroughbreds?

Who would ever expect that Binay would come this far so soon? Who would ever think that Binay could make that quantum leap from mayor to vice-president, besting the record of his running mate, who had to start as mayor, then get elected as senator, as vice-president, and then president? I did and, obviously, the 14,501,307 who voted for him last May 10.

On January 6, 2008, this co-alumnus from the UP Preparatory School was my Man of the Year 2007 in this space. I wrote about him then, thus:

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“The opposition in 2007 was endlessly mocked by apologists of the administration. as having no leader qualified to sit at Malacañang if and when.. The opposition, as the lackeys of Arroyo delighted in picturing it, was but a ragtag gaggle of ambitious wannabes, each one of whom desperately wanted to lead….I say hogwash to these obsequious statements, which are actually said more in secret awe of the large roster of qualified men and women in the opposition. It betrays more the uneasiness of those in the administration over the tremors that have been rocking the foundations of the Arroyo government….Binay, better by far than most, has kept the flame of the opposition burning since that grand theft of the May 2004 elections. He had effectively shepherded the surly rage of the corps of FPJ supporters who were orphaned by the death of FPJ. He has never wavered in the fight to bring out the truth in the shameful and shameless election of Arroyo….The loyalty of Binay to the cause of the opposition is without question. Ask the man on the street, and he’d probably tell you that Binay moves around in his crusades without any effort to be recognized….By force of his performance and dedication, he is the leader, albeit the dark horse (pun unintended), who could meet head on and buck off Arroyo’s rusty knights.”

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More that the president-elect, Binay is my Man of the Moment. His rise to the vice-presidency is never a tale of the workings of Destiny or a happy result of the death of a beloved. The voters who put him where he is now knew exactly what he stood for. They jumped over party lines and chose one whose heart beats for the poor and underprivileged, from whose ranks he rose. Binay, they felt, knows how to respond to their needs, as he did when he was mayor of Makati.

Indeed, it is no fawning declaration from a resident of that city when he claims that the poor do not get sick in Makati; that the underprivileged could die and be buried in dignity; that people can walk down the streets and feel comparatively safer than they would if they were somewhere else. His performance as a seven-term mayor has transformed the face of Makati, a feat never before attained by any other local executive, whether mayor or governor, in the Philippines. Surely, what he has done to Makati, he can replicate in the whole country.

Binay won because his persona best exemplifies the way the opposition against the Arroyo government should comport itself once it assumes the seat of power. Second, Binay has the distinction of having ingrained himself deeply in the psyche of every Filipino who longs for good governance. Third, his influence on the course our country is taking is the consequence of his own ingenuous - or ever ingenious - acts of asserting his will over people and events. And, fourth, he has defined the mores of contemporary society or, at least, provoked the nation into some soul searching.

Having reached this far, Binay is now the right man for the Department of Interior and Local Government. The reservations of a proprietarial few - yes, there exist people who are determined to keep the president-elect within a circle of close relatives, die-hard friends, classmates and “Mommy’s devotees” - and who think that Binay might use this cabinet post to catapult himself to the presidency in 2016, should be dismissed outright, if the incoming administration is genuinely committed to good governance and sincere on its promises to the people.
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Binay has the B - for balls, to be very frank about it - to deliver and usher in a new climate of good governance, after nine years of a nightmarish descent into hell. And he’ll do it without any bulls**t.

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Lowered House

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Lowered House
Sunday, 06 06, 2010

The failure of the House of Representatives to ratify - before it adjourned sine die last Friday – the bicameral conference committee report on the disagreeing provisions of the Freedom of Information (FOI) bills of the Senate and the House, respectively, is a betrayal of the public trust.

The Right to Know. Right Now! Coalition, of which Transparency International (Philippines) is a member, branded as doublespeak the claim of Speaker Prospero Nograles that he did his best to get the report on the FOI ratified. At the Kapihan sa Sulo yesterday, lawyer Nepomuceno Malaluan, coalition spokesperson, said that even as Nograles publicly professed support for the ratification of the report, there were numerous acts by the House leadership that betrays its determined resistance to secure the ratification.

The Senate had already ratified the report on the FOI in February of this year. Yet, Nograles found every reason not to have the same report ratified by the House of Representatives. On February 2, 2010, copies of the report were distributed to the members of the House, but the members of the House mysteriously went missing at the session hall when it was calendared for ratification. Again, on February 3, 2010, the House adopted or concurred with no less than 15 Senate bills, and ratified one conference committee report. However, the report on the FOI was conveniently left out. On May 24, 2010, Nograles implored the proponents of the bill to withdraw their motion to ratify the conference committee report, and committed to include it in the agenda of the House on May 31, 2010. May 31, 2010 came and went without any action on the report.

Then, on June 4, 2010, after succeeding in convincing Representative Benny Abante, sponsor of the report, to deliver a manifestation on the prospective application of the FOI, obviously to shield some officials in the outgoing administration from any criminal action, Nograles, in a supreme act of betrayal, instead opened and closed the session, blitzkrieg style, and muzzled and gagged the proponents of the bill by turning off the microphones in the session hall, and invoking a quorum call which was unnecessary (or waived) in cases of ratification of conference committee reports.

Abante, CIBAC representative Joel Villanueva, and their colleagues in the House held on to the promise of Nograles to get this important piece of legislation enacted into law, one that has been introduced and re-introduced since 1987 to put flesh to the “right of the people to information on matters of public concern” under Section 7, Article 3 of the Constitution. They kept faith that Nograles will be capable of rising to the challenge of a Constitutional duty. Instead, they were betrayed. The betrayal was carried on national television, gaining for the House of Representatives a new name as the Lowered House, with Nograles as the ringleader of the conspiracy to kill the FOI bill.

This latest act of betrayal of the public trust by Nograles is not surprising to many. Nograles, who will be leaving (thankfully) the august halls of the House of Representatives on June 30, lost his chance at redemption. He will carry that tag that he presided over the affairs of the Lowered House on June 4, 2010.

The Right to Know. Right Now! Coalition will now have to wait for the Fifteenth Congress to tackle anew the bills calling for the enactment of a Freedom of Information Act. A special session of the Fourteenth Congress to tackle the report on the FOI is out of the question: how can anyone expect the principal beneficiary of its non-enactment call for a special session! Common, Cas Navarro, tell that to Sammy Martin, who told me yesterday that he came upon a white envelope with one thousand peso bills bundled about an inch thick left behind on the desk of a member of the House who was conveniently absent when the quorum was being determined. [But that is another story, or is it?]

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In the Fifteenth Congress, it would do well to put a clamp on the tyranny of the Speaker of the House of Representatives to dictate when a conference committee report should be submitted for ratification. How about an amendment to the Rules of the House in this regard, thus: “Consideration of a bicameral conference committee report on the disagreeing provisions of bills shall always be in order; provided, that such report shall be submitted to the House within five (5) days from the date of the report; provided further, that in case the report is not ratified by the House for any reason within the period of five days from the date of the report, the report shall be deemed ratified nonetheless.” Representative Erin Tanada, who has labored long on the enactment of a Freedom of Information Act, promised to introduce this amendment.

The Right to Know. Right Now! Coalition has vowed to take the campaign to an even higher level. The coalition said that it is not only the right to information that Nograles succeeded in killing, but his word of honor, integrity and leadership. He may have delayed the enactment of the Freedom of Information Act, but he has not defeated it at all. The coalition says that the right to information springs forth from sovereignty that resides in the people; it will endure.

Now, pending the enactment of the Freedom of Information Act by the Congress of the Philippines, we hope that the incoming administration will see to the immediate issuance of an executive order that will govern the access to official records and to documents and papers pertaining to official acts, transactions, decisions, as well as to government research data used as basis for policy development.

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No-el and No-proc?

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

No-el and No-proc?
Sunday, 05 29, 2010

Elections were actually held on May 10, 2010, but a grave and inexcusable error on the part of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) may put to waste that exercise - as if no elections were held at all and, therefore, we may have to go back to the polling precincts and vote all over again.

A voter verification feature in the counting machine would have shown the voter if his choices were correctly registered, but the Comelec disabled this feature. That feature, required under the law, was designed to warn voters of errors made by the machines on election day. Simply put, the voter should have been given proof that his vote was properly counted, that is, the machine read his ballot exactly the way the voter made his choices when he marked the “bilog na hugis itlog.” But the Comelec, instead of implementing this mandatory requirement, disregarded it; rather, “repealed it, usurping the power of Congress,” as my friend Leina de Legazpi correctly pointed out.

If we are to follow the precedent set in Germany last March 3, 2009 regarding electronic voting, then we could see the 51 million voters trooping back to the polls after the nullification of the results of the May 10 elections. Let’s ask former Senator Kit Tatad why this could be the result of the Comelec’s grave and inexcusable error.

At the Kapihan sa Sulo yesterday, Tatad came out with his paper entitled “A Proposal to Nullify the May 10 Elections.” Tatad noted that “in 2009 in Germany, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled electronic voting was unconstitutional. The court held that the voting machine does not make it possible for the voter or the voting board to reliably examine, when the vote is cast, whether it has been recorded in an unadulterated manner, or whether when transmitted it has been accurately transmitted in its unadulterated form. Democratic elections, the court pointed out, are democratic only when they retain their public character. That is to say, when the public, beginning with the voter, can see and authenticate every essential step of the election without need of special expertise.”

The Comelec disregarded the provision regarding the observance of an audited paper verification system, which was originally in place when the public tested the machines. Tatad added: “By disabling the voter’s verification mechanism, the Comelec made the voter completely blind to what the machine did to his ballot after he had put it in. Thus, no voter who voted last May 10, from the President of the Philippines to the lowliest individual could state for a fact that she or he knew that the machine had read her or his vote right. This totally voids the voting.”

IT expert Roberto Verzola describes it accurately, thus: “Under the old system, candidates and voters could see how their votes were counted one vote at a time. This is living democracy, when citizens are active witnesses and participants in the counting of votes that will select their leaders. We lost this democratic process under automated lections, which give us no idea if the machines counted our votes correctly. Excluding candidates and voters from the counting of the votes is actually a big step backward in electoral democracy.”

The German Federal Constitutional Court decided last year that electronic voting is unconstitutional. The Court ruled that the use of the electronic machines contradicts the public nature of elections

The use of electronic voting in Germany was challenged on the ground that “the system was not transparent because the voter could not check what actually happened to his vote, being actually asked to blindly trust the technology.” It was established that the voting machines do not print out receipts similar to those what Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM should have provided every voter in the May 10 elections. It was claimed in Germany, as it is now in the Philippines, that the results could be manipulated because of the absence of any verification feature.

In the article “No E-Voting in Germany” on March 11, 2009 of the European Digital Rights (EDRi) - an international non-profit association committed to defend civil rights in the information society - it was reported that the Court “ruled that the Federal Voting Machines Ordinance having introduced e-voting was unconstitutional because it did not "ensure that only such voting machines are permitted and used which meet the constitutional requirements of the principle of the public nature of elections."

It was pointed out by EDRi that “the court considered that, differently from the traditional voting system where manipulations and frauds are much more difficult involving a high degree of effort and a high risk of detection, "programming errors in the software or deliberate electoral fraud committed by manipulating the software of electronic voting machines can be recognised only with difficulty." Also, in the court's opinion, the electors should be able to verify how their vote is recorded without having to possess detailed computer knowledge. "If the election result is determined through computer-controlled processing of the votes stored in an electronic memory, it is not sufficient if merely the result of the calculation process carried out in the voting machine can be taken note of by means of a summarising printout or an electronic display."

Now, Tatad said he would ask the Supreme Court to nullify the May 10 elections. Fully convinced the elections were rigged on account, among others, of the absolute inability of the voter to know how his vote was counted and whether or not his vote, even if correctly counted, was transmitted accurately, Tatad said he will seek the nullification of the results because the process was unconstitutional in this regard.

That should put those trooping to Times Street to think twice about depositing their polished CVs. Not yet, not now, Ding, Dong, Ping, Pong. And to the infotech-challenged Koala bears, happy and lucrative days could be here again.

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Why is the random audit taking too long?

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Why is the random audit taking too long?
Sunday, 05 16, 2010

It is very alarming.

The random manual audit is taking too long, and the results in those precincts where the audit is already finished are not being made public immediately. Worse, we are told that it will take about a month for the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to come out with the results of the audit.

A precinct audit should only take at most half a day, after which its results should be immediately transmitted to the audit committee and simultaneously made public. Any delay will fuel fears about discrepancies being covered up, and will make the audit process less credible.

The random manual audit is the only remaining chance we have to determine the error rate of the PCOS machines that counted the votes on May 10, 2010. Without knowing the error rate, we will never know how trustworthy the machine counts and, by extension, the final outcome of the elections.

At the Kapihan sa Sulo yesterday, Roberto Verzola of the electoral watchdog Halalang Marangal pointed out that with the acceptability of the results of the random manual audit put into serious doubt with the unexplainable delay, the credibility of the outcome of the elections is likely to be questioned.

The random manual audit is the last remaining chance to determine the error rate of the PCOS machines, after the Comelec had taken away the four other possible modes, thus: (1) The results of the Comelec acceptance tests, which should have included tests for machine error rates, remain confidential; (2) The Systest Labs test results, which should also include machine error rates, also remain confidential; (3) A final testing should have established that the machines make zero error when counting the votes in ten ballots. Instead, the machines showed errors so glaring that the Comelec cancelled the tests; and (4) On election day, a voter verification feature in the machine should have shown the voter if his choices were correctly registered, but the Comelec disabled this feature.

Verzola said: “We have no idea at this time of the actual error rates of these machines, because Smartmatic and the Comelec have kept their test data as well as any error rate findings by Systest Lab confidential. Three days before election day, the election inspectors were supposed to do a ten-ballot test, but it was cancelled by the Comelec due to an alleged memory configuration, and in the general confusion and mad rush to reconfigure the machines in time for May 10, we have no idea whether every machine went through the test and passed it with zero errors. Also, the Comelec disabled the machine’s voter verification feature, which would have warned voters of errors made by the machines on election day. Finally, the results of the random manual audit are either delayed or are not being made public.”

We do not know yet the actual error rates of the PCOS machines. If the error rates are too high, the PCOS machine results will be useless in resolving very close contests, like in the race for the vice-presidency.

The May 10 elections were held using PCOS machines whose error rates have not been made public. Today, six days after the elections, we still have no idea of the error rates of these machines.

Yet, the Comelec has been prematurely proclaiming winners based on the results issued by these unaudited machines, without waiting for the audit findings. We are only a few days past the May 10 elections and the terms of office of outgoing officials end on June 30, 2010 yet. Why the rush?

Instead of enhancing its credibility, the audit committee has been undermining it.

By announcing the precincts to be audited at noon time of election day, forewarning cheats who could then immediately order their field operators to stay away from those precincts. Also, it is taking a long time to finish the audit, devaluing the audit for each day of delay, because cheats get an increasing chance to influence the audit results. And by not immediately making public the results from the finished precinct audits, the Comelec is only engendering the worst fear of the electorate that a cover up is being put in place.

The Comelec should make public the audit results as soon as they become available, and to finish the audit as soon as possible. Comelec should not rush the proclamation of machine winners until after the audit and the issues arising from the discrepancies it finds have been fully resolved.

Similarly, the Senate and the House of Representatives, convened as a national canvassing board for the presidential and vice-presidential elections, should seriously consider the import of the results of the manual audit - not simply note them – and go beyond the certificates of canvass submitted.

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Given the gross errors showed by the PCOS machines in field testing days before election day, and the expanding list of errors discovered on and after election day, expect losing candidates to question the results and demand a recount. And we cannot blame them. For the Comelec to insist on proclaiming based on the results generated by the machines whose credibility has been shattered does not make sense.

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Plans are moving along

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Plans are moving along
Sunday, 05 09, 2010

In the closing chapter of Terminal Four, a novel by vice-presidential candidate Jun Yasay, there is a scene that eerily comes close to reality vis-à-vis the alarm and foreboding that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is causing today. The book, written yet in July 2009 and published January this year, is described by former Manila Times publisher Alfred dela Rosa as “an intriguing roman à clef about corruption, power grab, love and sex in high places that resonate with recent media headlines and congressional probes.”

The entire book really does deserve a thorough reading, but what concerns us at the moment is the scene in Malacañang where Rick Santos, a hotshot lawyer who is a friend of the first gentleman and secret lover of the president, briefs the couple on the Comelec:

“They assure us that the implementation of a new nationwide computerized voting system will be completed on time; that the glitches expected of an untested system will be manageable. The technology revolves around an automated optical scanning system. Some critics claim that it doesn’t provide the transparency required for the counting of votes. These guys say the national electoral results can still be manipulated if expert manpower cannot adequately be provided for the operation of the new machines.”

The President then asks Rick if such manpower exists, and he replies: “To save face, Comelec will insist that it has the full complement of IT experts to oversee the elections and minimize hitches. They will announce that any manipulation of results is virtually impossible with the new system. Even if the opposition thinks otherwise, their objection is focused on a particular type of hardware and software, but not on the concept of an automated process. They know that reverting to the antiquated manual process would be a nightmare that would mainly favor the administration candidates. But since this is an entirely new system” - Rick paused and smiled like the Cheshire cat - “unexpected glitches are bound to happen.”

“You’re not suggesting that this new automated system is bound to fail, are you?” asked the president.

“It will fail . . . but you, Madam President, will have nothing to do with it. That is Comelec’s sole responsibility. The errors and malfunctions will be such that none of the candidates for president, vice-president and senators can claim any clear victory. With all due respect - and I must be very candid under the circumstances that we’re having this conversation - I foresee that the administration candidate for president will be the weakest contender, because…” Rick paused, as he was met with blank faces.

“The real contest,” Rick continued, “will likely be among the stronger opposition candidates. But our anticipated computerization fiasco will force a declaration of a failure of election in the national elective posts. And it will be impossible to hold special elections for these positions before June 30. The melee that will ensue will seriously threaten the peace and stability of the nation. In that event the President - Rick looked at the president in the eye - “will be compelled to use her emergency powers, including resort to martial rule, to curtail violence and chaos.”

I hope for our sakes that Yasay was just engaging in speculative fiction, but the nightmare he has described is unfolding too close to reality. In such a case, we have to be afraid, be very, very afraid.

With just a day left before the national elections, the Comelec seems unperturbed that the precinct count optical scan machines (PCOS or PEKEs, as they are now being called) have not worked during dry runs conducted in Quezon City, Batangas, Mindoro, Pateros, and everywhere. The Comelec is not even flustered that some 76,000 reconfigured compact flash cards needed to set aright the operation of the PEKEs have yet to be shipped and installed throughout the country.

“Plans are moving along, even better than expected,” says the Comelec. This said with an air of smugness, without batting an eye, and a trace of guilt. Where I come from, “better than expected” means 121-percent accomplishment, with lots of time to spare for resolving glitches, screw-ups and plain stupidities that have not been factored in in the timetable for project execution.

Anak ng PCOS! It’s been the same song, the same assurance, that the public has heard, that I’m sure if these Comelec guys sang this self-congratulatory excuse to the tune of “My Way,” they’d have been shot many times over by irate voters

The Comelec has had enough time since it inked a contract with Smartmatic and TIM, and up to now neither Comelec nor Smartmatic-TIM have divulged for public knowledge the nature and security features of the hardware to be used in the elections; the source code of the software, for review by interested parties; the terms and protocols of a random manual audit, and certification from the technical evaluation committee that the automated system is fully functional and a continuity plan is in place.

Instead, what we have is the song-and-dance that “plans are moving along, better than expected.” Is the mismatch between the PCOS configuration and the ballot configuration, resulting in unread votes, better than expected? If you ask me, that’s computerized dagdag-bawas, a digital Garci! Or is Murphy’s Law (“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”) the operative procedure and convenient scapegoat here?

Hey, Comelec, what gives? Are you not bothered by the frightful prospect of a failure of elections where an enraged nation holds you accountable?

But wait…maybe, just maybe, what had been happening - the machine glitches, the waiving of security marks and signatures in the ballots, the soft treatment Smartmatic had been given - are parts of a more sinister plan that is moving along to attain its demonic completion tomorrow.

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Give it to Gibo

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Give it to Gibo
Sunday, 04 25, 2010

Last Wednesday, while practically scouring the length and breadth of Nepa-Q Mart to look for the best items my limited money could buy (Ilocano ngamin!), I decided to conduct a little survey. As I haggled for the best bangus for my buck, I simultaneously asked the vendors who their choice for president would be. And, not surprisingly, six out of every ten vendors I asked anwered me in this wise: “Si Gibo talaga ang gusto ko, pero huwag na lang. Sabi kasi ng mga survey matatalo naman siya.”

In other words, why vote for a good candidate when he will lose anyway?

That is exactly our beef against the so-called surveys. They coax voters who they should vote for, playing up on the voters’ subliminal desire to identify themselves with the eventual winner. They’re actually a form of political hypnotism, where the audience (the rest of the voters out there) believe what they see unfolding before their very eyes (the survey results).

As positioned by the surveys, the leader of the pack or the one within striking distance of winning invariably gets the vote on election day because of this mass hypnosis, as it were.

Surveys create a bandwagon effect and precipitate self-fulfilling predictions without regard to the real and genuine sentiment of the rest of the unsurveyed voters. This excision is where the unfairness and disservice of the surveys lie.

Surveys that prey on the respondent’s naiveté — or his propensity to make a choice without considering the candidates’ credentials — are hardly the kind that educate the public on the importance of making good choices. Surveys of this sort rely on the certainty that a predetermined set of respondents will unerringly pick one among a set of choices. In that case, either the outfit has been bought to come up with figures that would confirm a predetermined conclusion, or that the outfit had started on the ugly premise that notwithstanding the choices made by the respondents, the conclusion must be reverse-engineered and defended before the public at all costs. And that includes, of course, the right price.

Elections should be about making the right choice, zeroing in on the most qualified who will back his words and thoughts with the reality of deed. Elections should not be about voting only for the candidate who has the chance of winning because you see his face more often on TV or on posters plastered on every surface imaginable. If the latter were the primary consideration, then let’s just scrap the elections and rely purely on the survey results.

When a consistent frontrunner in the surveys suddenly slams the results of the latest survey (which he did not commission) that shows his points to be slipping while his opponents are catching up, you could be sure there has been some sort of manipulation that went with that frontrunner’s surveys. Perhaps Senator Noynoy Aquino knows how he has been getting his astronomical numbers in the previous surveys and how the unbelievably low numbers that the rest of the presidential candidates got were arrived at.

The yawning gap in qualifications and performance between Gibo and Noynoy should give Noynoy the least numbers in any survey, but the survey results show the reverse. Indeed, the surveys gloated about by the Liberal Party could have been sourced from Quiapo, that place where everything fake and dubious could be bought.

Gibo is the best choice in the field of eight candidates for president. Gibo has everything — galing at talino, and more. Yet, six out of every ten vendors I talked to would not be voting for him. Just because the surveys say he will lose anyway.

Even that video clip of Senator Jinggoy Estrada — where he exhorted the mammoth crowd at the rally of the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino to vote for Gilbert Teodoro if they are not minded to vote for his father, Joseph Estrada — speaks volumes of the strength of Gibo.

Back at the Nepa-Q Mart, a vendor gave me a different reason for not voting for Gibo: “OK siya, pero tuta naman siya ni Gloria, e.”

True, it is a downside that Gibo is associated with President Gloria Arroyo. And as the Beatles say, “Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight!” but that overlooks the intelligence and character of the man, and his qualifications, accomplishments and abilities as a leader. We have seen enough to be convinced that Gibo is his own man, as he already is as a candidate. Look at how he has been deftly handling the crisis in his own political party without any help from Arroyo: that’s leadership shining through. He has not turned to Arroyo to cure whatever ails his party: that’s independence of mind when it is crunch time. He is intelligent enough to make decisions at a time of his own choosing, for the good of the country above all and in accordance with the rule of law that has guided him all his life.

Larry Bondoc of Glendale, California, posted this in his blog: “Gibo’s greatest show of good character and values is his positive campaign style. He never engages himself in political mudslinging. He is just out there, listening to people and discussing issues and his platforms. He talks with substance and is clear in conveying his message to the Filipino people. Many believe he is an independent man and knows what he’s doing. I think he’s the man the country needs now.”

In the final reckoning, then, it is the qualifications, accomplishments and abilities that should matter. And come to think of it: If all those who prefer Gibo will actually vote for Gibo, imagine the votes he will get.

So enough of the hedging, the hemming and the hawing because of the surveys. Come election day, give it to Gibo.

[N.B. This was not printed in The Daily Tribune on April 25, 2010, for reasons unknown. It was finally printed on May 2, 2010.]
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1-AANI from the soil and the sea

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

1-AANI from the soil and the sea
Saturday, 04 24, 2010

Last Wednesday was my turn to restock the depleted contents of the family fridge, so I had to negotiate my way through the cacophonous rumpus and ruckus of the seafood section of Nepa-Q-Mart. I was contemplating with my usual Ilocano frugal state of mind whether to settle for the lowly galunggong or to dent my wallet with the purchase of the tastier but more expensive lapu-lapu, when my attention was drawn toward a group handing out leaflets. I thought two of them looked familiar and, sure enough, they turned out to be former UP students of mine.

One is now a lawyer based in Samar, and he told me that he has been practising there since passing the bar in 1993. His clients: the fisher folk in that depressed province in the Visayas. He was honest enough to admit to me that the financial returns for his lawyering may not be that good as compared to his compañeros in the big city. But the psychic rewards, he said, are more than he could ask for - especially when he sees the joy that lights up the faces of his poor clients. Solving fishermen’s legal problems and helping improve their lives was enough to keep him locked to that kind of law practice.

My other student, I learned, is now a social entrepreneur. Six years ago, according to her, she established a taho factory - yes, taho; she didn’t put on any airs and call it “soy yoghurt” - and the proceeds of this “unlawyerly” enterprise are used to fund various socio-civic projects in Metro Manila and her home province of Bulacan. In her social enterprise, livelihood opportunities are given to farmers from Pampanga, Bulacan and Nueva Ecija who find themselves idle in between the planting and harvest seasons. While working in Manila, these farmers are given a decent place to stay in the factory premises and are even encouraged to join the management's weekly Bible studies.

It was evident that these two are happy and content in what they are doing now. They are especially proud of the uplift they have brought to the spirits of the farmers and vendors who at last discover their self-worth and dignity after interaction with these two social activists. Before, these farmers and vendors regarded themselves as nobodies, insignificant members of the society, and wallowed in self-pity, dismissing themselves with phrases such as "ganito lang kasi kami"; "mahirap lang kami"; "kain po tayo, pero pasensya po at pangmahirap lang ang pagkain namin" and other expressions of low self-esteem. Everything’s changed now. After a few months of weekly Bible studies in the factory, the farmers eventually felt empowered and then became regular volunteers of the factory's socio-civic projects.

In early 2007, attorneys Angel Gatmaitan and Mayen de los Santos led a group of individuals driven by their advocacies to uplift the quality of life in their respective towns and provinces, and formed a bloc that will embody their common vision. 2007 and 2008 turned out to be fruitful years. They spearheaded projects and activities involving small-scale lending, food-for-the-orphanage programs, a mini-library, medical and legal aid, sea-weed farming and other livelihood seminars in different towns and provinces.

The response among the beneficiaries of the project was so heartening that sometime in mid-2009, a member organization proposed the idea of joining the Party-list System of Elections. From this core group burst forth the cluster of organizations and individuals making up the party-list now known as 1-AANI.

For the May 10 elections, 1-AANI is now on overdrive, gaining support from its member organizations and other groups of individuals as well as other sectors of society to represent the farmers, fishermen and the marginalized. In fact, members of the Philippine Association of Ex-Seminarians and members of other socio-civic organizations are supporting the group. They have witnessed the projects and believe that winning a seat in this year’s elections will enable the group to replicate their ongoing projects on a much wider scale, benefiting more people, especially the least fortunate among the tillers of the soil and toilers of the sea.

1-AANI, even before its accreditation as a party list organization, already has a track record to speak of, and is not just one of those run-of-the-mill organizations that make themselves visible once every three years attempting to join the Congress of the Philippines.

The nominees of 1-AANI for the May 10, 2010 elections are 1) Atty. Timm Renomeron, a lawyer, former editor of the Philipppine Law Journal, and copra trader from Nurauen, Leyte; 2) Marvyn Gaerlan, a two-time University Student Councilor in UP Diliman, now a working student taking up law, and the coordinator of the Samar Seaweed Farming Project; 3) Eddie Catalo, a self-supporting law graduate and seafood trader from Boronggan, Eastern Samar; 4) Antonio Mirador, a municipal councilor for 12 years, who has been in the fishing business since 1976 and former vice-president of the Samar Fishermen Association; and 5) Atty. Anghel Gatmaitan, a lawyer from Bulacan, a volunteer for various socio-civic causes.

With the presence of these young men of the 1-AANI in the House of Representatives in the Fifteenth Congress, the marginalized sector that has benefitted from them in all these years will finally have a voice to articulate their concerns and enact them into law.

On top of the legislative agenda of 1-AANI, according to Atty. Gatmaitan, is the introduction of amendments to the Fisheries Code and the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act, designed to expand the credit and other support facilities available to those in the agriculture and fishery sector.

In English, the party’s name means “to harvest.” Expect, then, 1-AANI to harvest, for the sector it has sworn to represent in the House of Representatives, a bounty of laws that will serve the needs of the fisherfolk and farmers.

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Autism and marijuana

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Autism and marijuana
Sunday, 04 18, 2010

The denigrators of presidential candidate Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino Jr. claim that he is autistic. Of course, they would; that’s their role in the current political exercise. But what is alarming is that the Liberal Party (LP) never made any real effort to convince the public that its standard bearer is not mentally-challenged.

Thus, in my column of February 21, 2010 entitled “Those whom the gods wish to destroy,” I wrote: “It was methodical madness for the LP to make a limp denial of the autism issue and to give one columnist hell just because he had asked Noynoy if he felt alluded to. The autism issue will not die with the kind of answer that the LP has given; it could engender far worse and more personal issues that could irreparably hurt Noynoy’s campaign.”

Now comes the “Psychiatric Report” on Noynoy’s alleged mental disorder and use of marijuana, whose authenticity and contents have since been denied. The trouble with denials, however, is that they are easy to verify to an acceptable extent, even for non-specialists. The Report, even if fake, cannot be perfunctorily dismissed: it is replete with details of his character and personality, which Noynoy is reported to have exhibited, from which anyone can make an uneducated conclusion.

Even before the Report came out, Noynoy’s image has been a curious kaleidoscope of constantly changing personas: an individual alternating between fits of anger and goodnaturedness; a person indecisive on many issues, including his handling of the furor over Hacienda Luisita; a latent dictator who threatens not to recognize whoever is appointed chief justice before June 30; a doting father-figure to a son of his sister; a starry-eyed politico with a furious cigarette smoking habit and unconscious frothing in the mouth as he grapples with the realities of a situation.

The Report does lend some basis for questions to pile up since talk started about the mental state of Noynoy.

For starters, let’s zero in on the use of marijuana.

The case is made that autism is assuaged by an infusion of marijuana. Stated otherwise, marijuana cures autism. Is there really such a connection?

Google “marijuana and autism” and you will get a full edification that marijuana, indeed, is a cure for autism. From the Autism Research Institute at www.autism.com: “Some families have found marijuana to be nothing short of miraculous. Some of the symptoms marijuana has ameliorated include anxiety, aggression, panic disorder, generalized rage, tantrums, property destruction and self-injurious behavior.”

In the news item from the online edition of television network ABC on November 29, 2009, at www.abcnews.go.com, a mother makes the following claim: “’Marijuana balanced my son. My son had self-injurious behaviors. He was extremely aggressive, he would run out of our house. He was a danger to himself and others. But just hours after I gave him one of the pot-infused brownies, I could see a change - both in his appetite and demeanor.” And at www.righthardia.blogspot.com is this entry: “It seems to me if one is going to need to use drugs, one ought to consider a relatively safe drug, like marijuana, if research bears out the good results that a number of parents have reported.”

There are thousands of entries and testimonials in Google on the benefits of marijuana use in the cure of autism.

Barack Obama, in his autobiography “Dreams of My Father” released before the campaign for the US presidency in 2008, jumped the gun by saying: “Ok, look, you know, when I was a kid, I inhaled frequently.” It paid that he made the admission well before somebody else made any disclosure that could have wrecked his campaign.

In the case of Noynoy, any admission or denial he makes would not exculpate him either way, now that the (in)famous “Psychiatric Report” has pre-empted whatever he may pose as a defense against the allegation that he used marijuana in his youth.

Any admission (to his use of marijuana) would necessarily lead one to entertain the thought that there is some truth to the insinuation that he is suffering from some mental problem for which cannabis would be an appropriate cure. On the other hand, any denial that he stayed away from marijuana will not necessarily disabuse the existence of the many verifiable acts and personality traits he has exhibited.

It did not help any when Noynoy declined to submit himself to a psychiatric test. Indeed, if there are no bats in his belfry, why should he not welcome the bat catchers?

Worse, he has instead challenged his political opponents to a lie detector test. What he has overlooked is that the questions in such a test could very well fit the same mold of the questions that would be asked in a psychiatric test. What will his answers be, for instance, if he is asked whether he was ever administered a psychiatric test, or if he had ever smoked marijuana in his entire life?

Whoever made the “Psychiatric Report” had it all figured out, but I still put that blame on Noynoy and the LP who have been less than transparent about the nature of his mental condition. And whoever counselled Noynoy to pose the challenge of a lie detector test must be the Trojan Horse in the LP.

By all means, let us condemn - or shoot - the ones responsible for the “Psychiatric Report.” But, then again, this is the endgame of the political war: everyone is fair game and no one is going to be spared.

Whichever way the debate on Noynoy’s mental state goes, there is a lesson learned: Candidates for national public office must be forthright with the voting public early on. There are no secrets that the public will not get to know or just speculate about, eventually.

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What’s the PPCRV doing?

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

What’s the PPCRV doing?
Sunday, 04 11, 2010

That was the question asked by those who attended the Kapihan sa Sulo yesterday, after Prof. Roberto Verzola of the Halalang Marangal (HALAL), an election watchdog, had detailed the security features of the Automated Election System (AES) stripped away by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), without the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) raising a howl.

Why the PPCRV appears inutile in its tasks as the Comelec-accredited citizens’ arm for the May, 2010 elections is indeed puzzling, leading some to speculate that the much-maligned and unlamented National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) could have made the more effective election watchdog.

Verzola distributed copies of his paper ‘Disquieting Signs That Make 2010 Election Fraud Easier,’ and repeatedly cited Section 6(a) of the Automated Election Law (AEL) as providing for “adequate security against unauthorized access.” Yet, ‘the Comelec has been gradually stripping away security features that were meant to prevent unauthorized access to the machines, ballot boxes, and the ballots themselves,’ Verzosa bewailed. He detailed this gradual degradation of the system security, as follows:

1. The ballot box is not transparent. - Old ballot boxes had a transparent window, to detect ballot stuffing. Transparent ballot boxes are the product of our long experience coping with cheats under a manual system,. At first, the ballot box for the automated election was also designed using transparent plastic. But the Comelec shifted back to dark plastic, supposedly to avoid exposing to light the sensitive ultra-violet (UV) markings on the ballots. This obviously is a lame excuse, because the UV markings are scanned and authenticated by the counting machine before the ballot is stored in the ballot box.

2. UV detection of fake ballots disabled. - The counting machine has a built-in feature to detect and reject ballots without the proper UV markings and are, therefore, presumed fake. However, the counting machine’s scanner was ordered turned off by the Comelec, disabling this authentication feature. (So the ballot box does not have to be dark after all!) Again, this is one less security feature for cheats to worry about.

3. NPO security mark missing in ARMM ballots. - With National Printing Office security marks missing in authentic ballots, it is now easier to pass off fake ballots The cheats are back in business. In fact, with the ballot security measures being stripped away, the electoral system will be fully exposed to the biggest weakness of ballot scanning and counting machines. It will be much easier now for the cheats to mark ovals than write names when mass-producing thousands of fake ballots.

4. BEIs instructed not to use digital signatures. - The Comelec general instructions for Board of Election Inspectors tell the BEI members not to digitally sign the data to be transmitted. The Comelec claims that the machine will just sign for them.

In short, precinct-level elections inspectors have been instructed by the Comelec to send election results without their digital signatures. The Comelec defends this incomprehensible instruction by saying that the digital signature generated by Smartmatic for the inspectors is already encoded into the machine. This is the equivalent of instructing inspectors to sign blank forms, which insiders could then use in whatever way they like. This is an open invitation to fraud. Earlier the Comelec had ignored suggestions that the functions of a digital certification agency be assigned to an independent third party, instead of remaining with Smartmatic. With the functions of digital signature generation, transmission and confirmation concentrated in Smartmatic, which also sold us the system and is furthermore running it, we have the business equivalent of the functions of supplier, operator, accountant, cashier and auditor assigned to a single person. Another open invitation to fraud.

5. Verification of voter’s choice disabled. - Section 6(n) of the AEL requires that the counting machines lets voters verify if their choices were correctly interpreted by the machine, before their choices are recorded. Already built into the counting machine, this feature that displays the actual names of candidates corresponding to shaded ovals and asking the voter to confirm by pressing the ‘CAST’ button. This would have been a perfect opportunity for the voting public to determine the accuracy of the voting machines, right on election day, right before their very eyes. The Comelec has taken away this opportunity, by disabling this verification feature. Now, the voter only gets a ‘thank you’ message. This only means one thing: it is possible for the machine to register a different choice, and the voter cannot complain because he will never know about it. The machine provides no paper audit trail that each voter can actually verify. Voters can no longer verify if the scanning machine has correctly registered their choices.

6. Source code access highly restricted. - The source code is Smartmatic’s general instructions to its counting machines. Pursuant to Section 12 of the AEL, it is incumbent upon the Comelec to promptly make the source code “available and open to any interested political party or groups which may conduct their own review thereof.’ Yet, the Comelec has inexplicably dragged its feet on this issue, making vague promises about opening the source code, but in reality keeping it closed and secret. While the Comelec may have already announced that the source code was ‘open’ for review, it imposed such restrictive conditions that made it next to impossible for local reviewers to do the task. Thus, no stakeholder has been able to review the source code.

.

The Comelec has been doing its worst, to guarantee the failure of the AES for the May, 2010 elections. It remains for the PPCRV, the accredited citizens’ arm, to do its best as a watchdog in order to remedy the failings of the Comelec, and to assure the electorate that whatever the poll body has been programmed to do will not succeed.

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Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto
Sunday, 03 28, 2010

Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto will be back at the Senate in the 15th Congress, that my friend Leina de Legazpi proclaimed with certainty when we met at the Senate Lounge last Thursday.

Sotto is a candidate for senator under the Nationalist People’s Coalition.

I asked Leina what makes her absolutely sure that Sotto would be back at the Senate. Leina said matter-of-factly: “Because Tito has earned it!” I cannot but agree with Leina. The Filipino voter is a discerning voter, one who knows which candidate would make a good and performing senator of the Republic. So, in the same fashion that performers in the august halls of the Senate like Enrile, Tatad, Jinggoy Estrada, Pia Cayetano, Santiago and Serge Osmena will be recognized and rewarded, Sotto will be recognized and rewarded by the voters on May 10, 2010.

Indeed, Sotto has earned his spurs.

Sotto topped the senatorial elections in 1992 and served two terms until 2004. He is credited for having authored/steered the passage of the Overseas Absentee Voting Law, the Seat Belts Use Act, the creation of Family Courts, the Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Code, and the establishment by legislative fiat of bodies such as the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, the Film Development Council and the Optical Media Board. He sponsored the conversion into cities of 25 municipalities in various parts of the country, such as Makati, Marikina, Pasig, Parañaque and Muntinlupa. Sotto was also responsible for the passage of several bills providing for the establishment of tourist zones in the country, considered vital to the promotion and advancement of our tourism industry towards international standards.

Tito was twice bestowed the International Award of Honor by the International Narcotics Enforcement Officers Association in Florida and California, USA. As senator, he helped build and improve schools nationwide and directed budgetary support to medical institutions such as the Philippine General Hospital, National Kidney Institute, the Philippine Heart Center, the Lung Center, Quirino Memorial Hospital and the Vicente Sotto Medical Center.

Sotto, has proved himself as an achiever, worthy of the trust of the electorate. As the Senate beckons once more, Sotto is determined to pursue his advocacy against the scourge of drugs. Sotto vows to continue his fight against illegal drugs, which he started when he was vice-mayor of Quezon City and carried on in the Senate through his dogged stewardship of the Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, and the creation of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), of which he was the principal author and sponsor. “It has been eight years since the passage of the law,” he says, “and it is about time we review it, fine-tune it, and make it more responsive to the times. Drug traffickers have become more creative and more sophisticated in dancing around the law. We should not allow them to outrun, outgun and outmaneuver our law enforcers and our justice system. We must plug all the loopholes so they will not be able to circumvent the law.”

Sotto’s name is now synonymous with the fight against the proliferation and use of illegal drugs. The creation of PDEA at the instance of Sotto is an organizational approach to control and eventually eliminate the drug problem by creating an agency that focuses on the coordination of the different anti-drug entities and the implementation of government policies addressing the drug problem. Sotto is also credited for the inclusion of “methamphetamine hydrochloride” commonly known as “shabu” under the classification of dangerous and prohibited drugs,” a direct approach to ban certain substances prone to abuse.

Once back in the Senate, the improvement of the capabilities of the Philippine Coast Guard is part of Sotto’s overall continuing advocacy against the menace of illegal drugs and prohibited substances. He understands that this is another investment in the future of a great number of our “spaced-out youth” who, directly affected by the influx of illegal drugs in the country, could not seem to know whether they are coming or going.

Sotto will also push for a mandatory rehabilitation (for free) for the country’s drug dependents under a proposed agency of the Department of Health. The agency, to be called Bureau of Drug Abuse Treatment, will handle all problems and development programs related to drug dependents. Sotto says that the government cannot win the war against drugs and drug abuse by having effective law enforcement and prosecution alone. What is also needed, Sotto correctly diagnosed, is a program for rehabilitation and preventive education.

Sotto acquitted himself well as chair of the Dangerous Drugs Board from July 2008 until November 2009, when decency called for him to resign from that post as soon as he filed his Certificate of Candidacy for senator.

Working with him since 1992 at the Senate, I saw how then neophyte senator Sotto faced the immense pressure from the prying eyes of critics and expectations of his colleagues, and eventually prove his mettle and earn the respect and trust of the other senators and, most importantly, the Filipino people who voted him topnotcher senator into office. Sotto as senator, again, for the third term, this time as a senior legislator working alongside Enrile, Tatad, et al., will make the nation expectant of another vibrant and working Senate.

Sotto, in both his capacities as Senate minority leader and majority leader of the Commission on Appointments, in the 9th, 10th, and 11th Congress, has been known to be a consensus-builder and a mediator, reconciling differences among colleagues into a happy and mutual concession.

Composer of Magkaisa, that stirring anthem of the 1986 Edsa revolt, Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto III will live up to his billing as Senate consensus-builder and mediator — a tunesmith, as it were, who will transform harmonious chords out of the discords of the men and women of the Senate in the15th Congress.

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Remembering Emi Boncodin

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Remembering Emi Boncodin
Sunday, 03 21, 2010

On a fine day in September 2006 — I had just shepherded the Kabul Declaration Against Corruption at a conference held at the Serena Hotel, and was about to leave for my UN quarters — I heard a familiar voice asking the hotel concierge what rooms were available and how much they cost. The gravelly yet sing-song inflections took me back in time to my Senate and UP days, and I was very sure to whom it belonged. And true enough, it was Emi, a.k.a. former Budget Secretary Emilia Boncodin.

What was a very fragile Bikolana like her doing in war-torn Afghanistan? She told me she had come as a consultant to the Afghan Ministry of Finance in the preparation of the national budget. Emi stayed at the hotel only for two days, preferring to stay at the more frugal quarters for consultants. She did save a lot in changing residence, and took pride in being able to spend her savings buying a rare indulgence for an austere woman like her: a hand-spun cashmere shawl — the famous pashmina.

The thoroughness of Emi’s work was evident in the neatness with which the budget of Afghanistan for 2007 breezed through the two Houses of the Afghan parliament, whereas the 2006 budget was hardly one that could be called a national financial plan, and therefore had a rough time at the parliament.

In 2007, I was handling the parliamentary side of the budget process, and Emi’s inputs to me greatly enriched the advice I gave to the Wolesi Jirga (counterpart of our House of Representatives) and the Meshrano Jirga (the Senate of the Afghan parliament). And in an admirable gesture of the bayanihan spirit found among fellow Filipinos in foreign lands, Emi even graciously helped me draw up the framework of a Legislative Budget Research and Monitoring Office for the Afghan parliament.

Outside of our work as consultants, I got to discover a lot about Emi. In the quaint streets of Kabul where internationals like us could safely saunter during our free time — Flower Street where kebab stalls (which Emi never liked at all) abound but has only a sprinkling of flower stands; Chicken Street where no chicken is sold but is overflowing with carpets and Afghan bric-a-bracs; or, in the restaurants which had security clearance for internationals to dine in — we talked about home, and the political environment we left behind. Emi wanted a respite from the murky bureaucracy back home, and a consultancy in Kabul was a very opportune excuse.

Emi talked about simple living, a lifestyle she had imposed on herself despite the perks that went with her having been a high career government official. I could not believe that here was a lady who simply had no cravings for material possessions, nor a predisposition for the fancy! A plain and small bag that never left her side contained all she needed for her stay in Kabul. Back home, this simplicity spoke more eloquently through the simple house she lived in, and her aversion to anything that would announce her high station in government — no mansion in a gated subdivision, no fancy cars, no diamonds and pearls, and no obsequious lackeys trailing behind her.

In one meeting at the Afghan Ministry of Finance, where I chanced upon her one Sunday morning (Sunday is workday in Afghanistan), Emi was totally conspicuous by the simplicity — almost to the point of tawdriness — of her dress, except with the recently acquired pashmina draped over her head, while all the rest around her, including two other lady expatriates, were in their Sunday’s best.

But beneath the simplicity was an innate dignity. I remember how Emi’s countenance lit up with pride and transformed the features of her plain, unadorned face (a face that made no pretensions to cosmetic enhancements) into something that approached a seraphic serenity when she recounted to me her decision to join the Cabinet members who dissociated themselves from the Arroyo government in July 2005. I remember, too, how the same sublime smile gave way to a gloomy, black look when she told me of her misgivings about where our nation was headed under a government that seemed impervious to the scandals besetting it.

And beneath the innate dignity was a steadfast devotion to duty. It is amazing how Emi could subordinate a serious medical problem to her professional responsibilities. She was determined to have been in need of a kidney transplant in 2005, but Emi, as she would confide to me, had it postponed until Congress had passed the budget that year. Imagine having just come from a kidney transplant, and now she was in Kabul where the nearest decent medical facility was three and a half hours away by plane in Dubai! Here was a frail woman who would not allow what ails her to get in the way of her utilizing her expertise to heal the ills of society, whether it be in the Philippines or in Afghanistan.

Emi loved the academe, the fertile ground where she sought to impart her many years of experience to students at the UP National Center for Public Administration and Governance. She must have relished the thought that by her example, students looking to join the government would be inspired not to lie, cheat or steal. She must have taught with a passion that strove to reach beyond compassion, that when she chanced upon me teaching some members of the Afghan parliament how to conduct oversight, Emi said: “Pag nakita mong lumaki ang mga mata nila, wala ka nang iibigin pa.”

At one lunch meeting I and Tom Achacoso (who was then visiting Kabul as consultant to the Afghan Ministry of Labor) had with her at the Bahay Kubo, a restaurant operated by a Filipino couple, Emi shunned the rich food that had been prepared for us. Following a strict diet, she settled for the simple soup. But she regaled Tom and me with juicy morsels of her love affair with the academe after she had left government service. And there was one word she kept repeating whenever the conversation veered toward government service: transparency. Transparency eliminates thievery, Emi said.

I saw Emi a few months back at the NCPAG in UP Diliman where she used to teach, and where my wife also teaches. She was many pounds lighter than when I saw her last in Kabul. She asked me what had happened to the claim of several laid-off workers of the Metro Rail Transit, for whom Emi had prepared a supplemental budget, and was dismayed to learn that it had taken already seven years and no benefits had been given to them. She also said she had a baby that would soon be born, and asked me to join her at its birth. (Knowing she was a spinster, I had to gasp in disbelief until she laughingly told me it was a “baby” in the field of governance.) It is only now, in the eulogies delivered to keep the memory of our friend Emi alive, that I learned Emi’s baby was a project designed to build the capacity of civil society to monitor a budget that, otherwise, perennially gets overstated, realigned or stolen.

We parted that evening with the customary beso-beso, and I cajoled her: “Punta ulit tayo sa Kabul!” But that was not to be. I will be going back to Kabul after the Holy Week, alone.

Emi now rests in the country that she has served so well, honestly, and with distinction. It will be many years from now when we will have another Emilia Boncodin guarding the budget. And there might never come a time for another Emi, espousing transparency and accountability, who lived simply and left public service untouched by scandal.

Khuda hafiz doste man. Wa tashakur az yaad bood — Goodbye, my friend. Thank you for the memories.

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Senator Tatad and the surveys

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Senator Tatad and the surveys
Sunday, 03 14, 2010

Senator Francisco “Kit” Tatad is trying to make a comeback to the Philippine Senate. He is running under the Puwersa ng Masa ticket of the hugely resurgent Joseph Ejercito Estrada.

Despite his exemplary performance for two terms as senator of the Republic, four years of them as majority leader, and his being in the constant consciousness of the Filipino electorate for the 41 years that he has been in public service, Tatad has yet to land in the top 12 of today’s surveys on senatorial candidates.

Tatad is optimistic he will win, and takes comfort in the classic “defeat” of Harry Truman at the hands of the pollsters who had the surveys proclaiming Thomas Dewey as the choice of the electorate in the 1948 US presidential polls. The pollsters were proven wrong, and Truman went on to become president of the United States.

Why do the survey results continue to exclude Tatad, who stands head and shoulders above many of those who now revel in their top slots, as churned out by mercenary survey outfits masquerading as crystal ball operators?

Tatad – in behalf of the millions who voted for him in 1992 and again in 1995, and those whom he has converted to his side with his scholarly dissection of Constitutional issues that would put many lawyers pretending to be Constitutional experts to shame – has every reason to wonder why, and he has taken the survey outfits to task, head-on.

Tatad says the Social Weather Station (SWS) should first explain its fatally flawed exit polls in the 2004 elections in Metro-Manila before it conducts yet another opinion poll related to the 2010 elections, and that Pulse Asia should disclose to the public how many candidates have paid how much in order to participate in and benefit from the surveys.

This is the irreducible minimum ethical and profesional requirement before the two firms resume their unrestrained effort to shape public perceptions in the 2010 elections. Tatad insists that the electorate have the right to make this demand in light of the far from exemplary records of SWS and Pulse Asia and the unaccountable persuasive power they now seem to possess.

Tatad recalls that on May 11, 2004, within hours of the close of balloting, SWS announced that Gloria Arroyo got 31 percent of the votes in Metro-Manila as against Fernando Poe, Jr. who reportedly got 23 percent. The SWS announcement was dutifully recorded around the world. However, when the official Commission on Elections count came, FPJ took Metro-Manila with 36.67 percent of the votes, while Arroyo got 26.26 percent. SWS had messed up in an exit poll, where no professional pollster should.

Yet, SWS simply carried on as though its credibility had not at all been tainted nor polluted.

Tatad points out serious limitations—from the questionnaire design, to the sampling method, to the manner of interviewing respondents, to the collation, analysis and interpretation of data. And he laments that despite these limitations, SWS once again seeks to foist itself upon the electorate as a competent and faithful interpreter of public opinion as the campaign enters its critical stages.

Similarly, Tatad is asking Pulse Asia to make a full disclosure of the services it has sold to politicians who are eager to rate in the surveys. At the Kapihan sa Sulo, where Tatad serves as Resident Constitutionalist, Tatad showed to us documents bearing the letterhead of Pulse Asia, inviting politicians to participate in its surveys at the rate of P400,000.00 per head, and to introduce “rider” questions about their candidacies at P100,000.00 each.

Indeed, from our recollection, the politicians’ names have never been published, and neither have the “rider” questions. Since the questionnaire forms the soul of any survey, it should be neutral and not biased for or against anyone. But the fact that paying politicians are allowed to contribute their own questions is not the best way of ensuring the neutrality and objectivity of the questions. And it does not prevent anyone from asking what else is being sold aside from the questions.

Tatad is clamoring for a new set of professional survey outfits, given the dismal and questionable performance of SWS and Pulse Asia, and to the extent that opinion polling can be done according to the highest professional and ethical standards.

I conducted my own uneducated and informal survey — call it primitive and unreliable, if you like — at a seminar where I served as discussant on the credibility of electoral surveys. The participants were simply asked to write at least 12 names of the senators they would vote for. Thirty-four responded, but not all of them completed the 12 names. But 32 of the 34 respondents indicated Tatad among their choices.

So there. That should put a lie to those paid survey results. Fransciso “Kit” Tatad, that irrepressible Bicolano who has served the country well, will be elected senator of the Republic, the surveys notwithstanding.

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And speaking of irrepressible Bicolanos, I know of one who’s celebrating — or ruing — his birthday today. As a Senate service chief for twenty-two years, Dan Pinto, a.k.a. Leina de Legazpi, has steered his underpopulated, ragtag staff to perform difficult tasks immediately, and impossible things a little bit longer. Happy 63rd birthday, Dan/Leina.

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Gusto ko happy ka!

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Gusto ko happy ka!
Sunday, 03 07, 2010

I must admit that when I first heard of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile’s new slogan, “Gusto ko happy ka!”, I asked myself how someone as brilliant and experienced as JPE could settle for something as unelaborate or unadorned—or tacky, according to some people who have grown accustomed to expect political slogans as a statement of egoism and self-deification. You know, the usual variations of “I am the greatest; I am the purest; I am the wisest.” Or like the “C’est moi” song in the musical “Camelot” where Launcelot beats his breast and boasts:

I'm far too noble to lie.

That man in whom

These qualities bloom,

C'est moi, c'est moi, 'tis I.

I've never strayed

From all I believe;

I'm blessed with an iron will.

Had I been made

The partner of Eve,

We'd be in Eden still.

Having known him for a considerable length of time—including those when I was in and without the Senate, when I had observed him pluck an elaborate phrase out of thin air while thinking on his feet—I sort of expected something more profound to come from him. Until I heard him over the radio. In countless interviews, the Senate President took time to explain his thoughts behind this catch phrase that has become so popular that even overseas Filipinos or residents of remote towns in the Visayas have all become familiar with it.

Many years ago, JPE—or Manong Johnny as he is now more fondly called—launched his political career with the slogan “Action agad!”, a promise that he somehow kept, even when he later on strayed into the dark nights of the Filipino soul as martial law administrator. But perhaps it is true when they say that God writes straight in crooked lines, because when the miracle of EDSA happened as it did, JPE was right there. There are a good number of people who would dispute the claim that JPE was the precursor of that action, but it is indisputable that JPE was right there in the thick of the suspenseful stand-off, prodded by a call to act.

So what has happened to the action man these days?

The action man has turned into a wise man—that’s exactly what happened. Not exactly young at 86, but still very healthy and equipped with perhaps the most brilliant mind in the Senate, JPE has been a fixture of the legislature since its restoration in 1987. He has been there for quite a time that it would not be a gross exaggeration to say that the young senators, through either beneficient contagion or osmosis, have absorbed from JPE a most important attribute a legislator could have: Thinking on one’s feet on every policy issue tossed at his face.

The public has often seen how JPE would debate, thrash out, hash out and argue any issue. Often he does this as if he were just thinking out loud, but the more significant reality is that JPE does his own homework, and comes prepared for the showdown. Now as Senate President, JPE could very well be the taskmaster who expects his senators to be prepared as well, and anyone not prepared to debate an issue but feigning otherwise could be exposed for the pitiful lack of sense and sensibility that lie behind the blather of his statements.

.

In October 2008, when the Senate presidency fell on his shoulders, JPE said: “To lead the Senate, with its great minds, strong advocacies, varying and independent political beliefs and leanings, it is not an easy task. But it is precisely this variance in points of view and the battle of great ideas that provide the dynamism we need to craft legislation that takes into account and balances the competing interests involved, with the end in view of serving the greater good of the people to whom we owe our mandate.”

These words speak volumes about the self-awareness of the man, of his admission that there are limits to the exercise of power despite the awesome capacity now in his hands to influence persons and events. It not so many words, JPE has said that he is not the Senate: that, rather, he is the servant of the people who relies on the collective wisdom of his peers.

What else has happened to the action man these days?

The action man has also turned into a compassionate man—that’s exactly what happened. This man now sincerely believes, with a wisdom borne out of years of experience, some of them not too pleasant, that people should not be deprived of their basic rights—food, health, education, employment, security, safe and peaceful environment, among others. That the government, from the highest official of the land down to the rank-and-file employees of all public offices and instrumentalities, is duty-bound to protect and safeguard these civil liberties. That by all means, but within the bounds of law, the government must cause the efficient delivery of basic services, provide economic opportunities for all, promote equality amongst its people, and safeguard its constituents from any form of threat to security. Evidently, this will remain to be his mission in life—to serve his country and his people the best way he knows how — by being simply our “Manong sa Senado.” How appropriate that sobriquet is! It brings to mind the original definition of Senatus: a council of wise old men.

As he goes around the country campaigning, expect his voice to reverberate to all corners of the country as he shouts, “Gusto ko happy ka! Gusto ko happy ka sa iyong kabuhayan, sa iyong kalusugan, sa iyong seguridad, at sa iyong kinabukasan! Gusto ko happy kayong lahat!”

And who could say no to a wise, compassionate man who wishes him happiness or the pursuit thereof?

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