"What other evidence is the Comelec looking for?"
The issue revolving the threat by President Duterte to cancel our contract with Smartmatic is not about the “glitch” in the secure digital (SD) cards, but the integrity in the counting of votes. Anyone who would say that the 1,051 vote-counting machines malfunctioned, and 2,246 of the SD cards were corrupted during the May 13 midterm election did not the affect the credibility of the election must be out of his mind. Glitches as a reason for the malfunction of the machines specialized in the counting votes can never be treated as trivial. The company that offered those machines guaranteed that their counting machines will never experience sudden, unusual and temporary malfunction or irregularity.
The government has its specific purpose when it purchased or leased those computer counting machines. Its contract with Smartmatic is a guarantee about the accuracy of the scanning, counting and transmission of votes in the most efficient way at the shortest possible time. The Commission on Elections has no right to say that the glitch, including the seven-hour delay in the transmission of the data, was trivial. Smartmatic should be the one to explain that, and not the Comelec spokesman James Jimenez, unless he admits being under the payroll of that private contractor.
If the Comelec would accept glitches as reason to justify the inefficiency of the system, claiming the malfunction did not affect the outcome of the election, or there was no evidence of cheating resulting in some of the candidates losing in the election, then that closes down the door for anybody to file a complaint against Smartmatic.
Remember, irregularity in the counting of ballots before we computerized our electoral system was severely punished. We equate our votes as our sacred and sovereign right to determine who should govern and rule us. This is why the term “sanctity of the ballots” came about.
The computerization of our electoral system may have hastened the counting in knowing the results at the fastest possible time. A glitch, being a malfunction in the operating system, effectively means that there is no way we can punish those machines that caused us serious inconvenience and damage to our electoral system, unless we can pinpoint the operator that caused the machine to malfunction. If such is the case, the person responsible can be punished for electoral sabotage.
Smartmatic guaranteed the avoidance of glitches. This is why it was able to clinch the deal. Even if we experienced numerous “glitches” as what happened in 2011, 2016, and again in 2019 election, we cannot enact a law punishing a machine for “committing” those errors which to a person is equivalent to one of incorrigible violator of their guarantee. We can only penalize the corporation by cancelling the contract and imposing damages against the officers and operators of those shoddy machines.
Comelec spokesman Jimenez makes us laugh when he insists there has to be a legal basis before the government can cancel the contract. He thinks the people are so stupid not to understand that the malfunctioning or glitch itself is evidence.
We cannot hold on to that lopsided contract with an unreliable service record because they know nobody can be punished despite the enormous amount of P10 billion paid to Smartmatic only to come out with dubious results, errors and possibly manipulated tabulations.
The right of the people as sovereign in determining their right to elect is crucial and pivotal to a democratic election. To let the Comelec understand what we are saying, the government remains omnipotent when it comes to determining the manner and outcome of their political exercise. It is an issue synonymous to their sovereign right to maintain our independence. That right cannot be negotiated with and entrusted to a private contractor.
In our case, Smartmatic tricked us into accepting its offer to service our electoral exercise demanding exorbitant fees, an amount many believed is much bigger than the budget allocated to the Comelec itself. In fact, the budget of the Comelec now appears to be a closely guarded secret. Once the people discover the amount, they might take up arms asking why are paying more for a private contractor to conducts for us a not-so-clean electoral exercise than to a constitutionally instituted office.
Despite all these guarantee, the geniuses who voted for the contracting out of our electoral system to a corporation suspected of alternately playing the role of a spy for the US intelligence services in screening and tampering the results to favor candidates willing to lick US interest.
Strangely enough, the Comelec’s contract with Smartmatic did not allow it to entertain electoral protest to determine accusation of fraud, protest, and tampering of ballots to determine who actually won the election. Their role is purely limited to supervising the electoral exercise but paid handsomely an amount for their services on an election that is held only every three years.
The failure of the Comelec to include in the contract the liability in case of an election protest essentially caused by the vote-counting machine operated by Smartmatic that resulted in the failure to resolve the long-delayed protest of vice presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong Marcos” amplifies the reality that the computerization of our electoral system is a myth. The rate Justice Benjamin Caguioa is unreasonably delaying the case proves that it takes much longer for a protestee to secure justice if the election is computerized than by just doing it manually.
Smartmatic laughed all the way to the bank because we were made to swallow the result presented by the shoddy and defective machines it installed. It leaves to the Comelec the burden of doing the recount as what the head of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) presided by Caguioa—a classmate of Noynoy Aquino—is doing. The inexplicable dilly-dallying of the protest case is a clear; that we now have a person by the name Leni Robredo styling herself the vice president whom the great majority of our people practically believed cheated her way to prevent Marcos from winning.
The contract which the Comelec entered into with Smartmatic appears more of a one-armed bandit. Whatever happens, Smartmatic will be with the gullible clients paying the incidental expenses for repairs and replacement of all the shoddy and defective machines. The beauty of it, only the Comelec officials, the protesting and losing candidates are allowed to roast themselves in a long and expensive litigation.
rpkapunan@gmail.com
