First, we get the announcement of an automated election for May 2010. It was an exciting news; however it got a rocky start due to debates and questions of its reliability. However, the advantages of this system are too great to be disregarded. First of all, votes can be gathered and tallied faster thus results would come in real time. Another advantage is that since it takes less time for a vote to go from the ballot box to being tallied in Congress, there are less risks of cheating, missing votes, etc. Or is it?
We Filipinos are a very innovative, creative bunch. We find ways to accomplish tasks whether it is a crude solutions (i.e. using paper clips as substitute TV antennas) or crafty ones (i.e. turning the US military Jeep into the now iconic Jeepney public transport). Plus, there are a lot of people in the country who are very knowledgeable when it comes to information technology. Take for example our infamous hackers; the creator of the I Love You Virus which penetrated even the US Pentagon’s cyber defenses and the recent attacks on government websites. What’s stopping them from beating the people in power again? Also comes the news about 5,000 or more cellphone signal jammers that were smuggled into the country.
An older report (about a week before this post) shows the tests conducted in Taguig City to have failed. The machines were unable to send the data via cellphone signals to the receiving machine (even with the use of three sim cards; one from Smart, another from Globe and last from Sun).
Now I may just be getting paranoid but that’s my thing isn’t it? Well, all these reports simply amount to a fear brewing about failure of election. The question now is, is it simply because of COMELEC or the manufacturer’s failure to create a reliable and working system? Or is it an elaborate, pre-planned step in order to make sure that the May 2010 elections do not push through?
The latter claim is very farfetched but for extreme leftists or pessimists, this is a very possible idea. Now I’m not that completely knowledgeable about our election, so I would just like to ask, will anyone benefit from a failure of election? And if yes, who? Change is good. Change can bring about better days. But if not careful, or done prematurely, the results can be the exact opposite of what change is trying to achieve.
My two pesos.
Posted on February 2, 2010
0