I wasn’t going to write about poll automation just yet. I thought what President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo told the foreign press corps last Friday, January 22 was old hat, until I saw the presidential palace story on the dinner:

PGMA assures foreign media there will be no failure of election

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo last night assured foreign correspondents there will be no failure of elections in May.

In a dinner she hosted for the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) at the Palace, the President said she was assured by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) that it is doing its best to complete the automated poll system before May. She said all the funds necessary for holding the national elections have been disbursed.

That’s funny. I did not come away from the Palace dinner feeling reassured that the automation was going great guns.

Oliver Teves of Associated Press shakes hands with President Arroyo while I (in brown coat) look on; left foreground is FOCAP president Jim Gomez; behind Jim is Dana Batnag of Jiji Press; on right background is Zhao Jiemin of Xinhua News Agency - PHOTO courtesy of Malacanang Palace press office

In fact I felt more apprehensive because of what Mrs Arroyo told us.

When I asked her – “Maam, are you personally worried” – about the automation?

Her reply did not give comfort. First she said, “Um”, and she looked up at the ceiling. Then she said, more like talking to herself, “I’m worried. I’m worried, but I – I have to go by what the Comelec said.”

Dear readers, tell me if I’m being paranoid by reading more than what the President really told us.

Help me out here by reading for yourself what President Arroyo (GMA) said – word for word – on poll automation during our dinner . I would like to thank a colleague in FOCAP for providing me with the specific quotes reprinted below:

FOCAP MEMBER: THERE ARE CONCERNS ABOUT THE AUTOMATION PROCESS.

GMA: Ya, thats why I called a national security council meeting. Because we needed to ask Comelec.

FOCAP MEMBER: ARE WE STILL ON SCHEDULE?

GMA:Ya, that’s what the Comelec said.

FOCAP MEMBER: WHAT ASPECT ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT, OF AUTOMATION?

GMA: Well, it’s not been tested. So we expressed the concern that everybody —

FOCAP MEMBER (ME): MAAM, ARE YOU PERSONALLY WORRIED?

GMA: Um – I’m worried. I’m worried, but I – I have to go by what the Comelec said.

FOCAP MEMBER: WHAT IF IT FAILS?

GMA: They said it might fail in some – some areas. But it cannot, but not nationally.

FOCAP MEMBER: WHAT ABOUT THE AUTOMATION ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT?THE COUNTING,THE–

GMA: I don’t know, I don’t know. It’s just that –

FOCAP MEMBER (ME): YOU’RE UNEASY

GMA: I don’t know. Like all of you. Like all of you. It’s more –

FOCAP MEMBER: WHAT STEPS ARE YOU DOING TO AVOID A FAILURE OF ELECTIONS?

GMA: We have to support the Comelec in everything they want to do. It’s their primary responsiblity but we’re suporting them. That’s why we called a National Security Council meeting. To ask them what they would need. We’ve made the budget tthat they need available.

FOCAP MEMBER: LET’S KEEP OUR FINGERS CROSSED.

GMA: They said they’re not entertaining a failure of elections

FOCAP MEMBER: NANDON BA ANG (IS THERE A )BACKUP PLAN IF EVER?

GMA: You know I can’t be their spokesman. You have to ask them. But then they made a presentation. What about failure of elections. They said there may be some but only in isolated areas, but not nationwide.

FOCAP MEMBER: SO WHAT DID THEY SAY IN SOME ISOLATED AREAS

GMA: Same as now. It happens. So they have their mechanism. But it doesnt affect the national anymore.

FOCAP MEMBER: THEY ASSURED YOU IT WON’T BE MASSIVE FAILURE

GMA: That’s what they said. They’re not entertaining national failure of elections, maybe in some isolated areas but not nationwide.

FOCAP MEMBER: DID THEY MENTION TO YOU ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF PARALLEL MANUAL COUNT?

GMA: They did not say.

FOCAP MEMBER (DANA BATNAG OF JIJI PRESS: – YOU SAID COMELEC IS NOT ENTERTAINING THE POSSIBILITY. DOES THAT MEAN THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT IS NOT PREPARING FOR THE POSSIBLITY OF A FAILURE OF ELECTIONS? OR ARE THERE PREPARATIONS?

GMA: As far as we are concerend, we would rather prepare to help Comelec succeed.

FOCAP MEMBER: IN CASE IT HAPPENS

GMA: You know, they said it’s not going to happen. So we take their word for it.

Since our Friday dinner, pronouncements from the Comelec have made me even warier.

Last Wednesday, Comelec Commissioner Armand Velasco told congressmen that they are prepared to do a manual count for 30% of the votes as part of their backup plan.

Do you know how big 30% is?

The registered voters now number 48,275,594 and 30% of that is 14.482 million.

That would definitely affect the outcome of the presidential polls.

Just to give you an idea, I will use some comparative figures that Ellen Tordesillas recently provided in her blog. She noted the following:

• Fidel Ramos won in 1992 with only 5,342,321 votes.
• Joseph Estrada won in 1998 with 10,722,295 votes or 31.39% of registered voters then.
• In 2004, Mrs Arroyo was credited with 12,905,808 votes or 29.64% of registered voters.

Given these trends, we should not be worried with an automation failure rate that could affect as much as 14.4 million voters?

There are other things I’m worried about. When I was listening to Wednesday’s Comelec and Smartmatic presentation before Senator Francis Escudero’s  Senate committee, I realized that the automation left very little margin for error as far as ballot distribution is concerned.

Let me explain. In all our elections,  Comelec only had to send out the number of ballots for each precinct nationwide plus a little extra for spoilage.

Now, because all the local candidates’ names from congressman down to councilor are printed at the back of each ballot, Comelec has to be very precise in delivering to every area.

In Quezon City for instance, ballots for District 1 should only go to District 1 and not anywhere else. Otherwise, the name of the candidates for congressman would be wrong. For the same reason, ballots for Quezon City cannot go to Manila since the names of the candidates for mayors and city councilors would be wrong.

For the first time, Comelec would have to practice that kind of precision especially in far-flung areas.

And some candidates could take advantage by finding ways for ballots, intended for certain areas where they are weak, to be diverted somewhere else.

From what I have seen of candidates’ behavior in previous polls, I am certain there are candidates who are even now trying to find ways to game the system for to their own advantage.

If you want to know more about what President Arroyo told FOCAP – about her hair, the grade she gave her former student Senator Noynoy Aquino, about life in the presidential  palace, etc – click on the link below:

Asking President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo about sex was   easier than asking her about politics and her feelings

Veteran journalist Ellen Tordesillas found your letter (see below) , hiring her services, “strange” and insulting.

From the tenor of your letter, I’m sure Ellen was NOT the only journalist you wrote to. Which brings me to my point – that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) should deeply delve into your proposal.

Ellen, the woman named Samira Saba is real and she is Smartmatic’s Communications Manager based in Caracas, Venezuela. The press release below from Smartmatic Venezuela quotes Senora Saba:

In your Malaya column, Ellen, you called Smartmatic a “Dutch firm”. This is what Smartmatic has always wanted the Filipino public to believe. But in reality, it remains very much a Venezuelan firm, and merely uses the Netherlands as a convenient address. Here is the link to their board of directors – http://www.smartmatic.com/company/board-of-directors/

Also, if you recall, Smartmatic sent to the Senate inquiry their very handsome, gorgeous-looking telenovela-type company officers and not one of them was Dutch. All spoke with a heavy Latin American accent that makes listeners think they’re romancing the English language.On the face of it, Smartmatic’s proposal to Ellen (and most probably to other Filipino journalists) appears aboveboard. The company needs writers, and therefore they want to hire someone very credible like Ellen.

But there are some insinuations Senora Saba make about you, Ellen. For instance, Senora Saba states: “If you are interested in adding our organization as a regular client for your freelance writer services, we can define the extent and number of articles you could write monthly.”

Senora Saba presumes Ellen’s body of writing is all paid for by regular clients of “your freelance writer services.” Tsk, tsk. She doesn’t seem to know you could make a hell of a lot of money writing the very opposite of what you are publishing right now.

Senora Saba is also very helpful. She wants to hire Ellen to write about “Smartmatic technology in particular” and then adds that if Ellen agrees, “in this case, we would of course furnish appropriate materials to the required depth.”

Smartmatic wants Ellen to do PR work for them. Nothing wrong with PR. Trouble is, Senora Saba should have hired a PR agency, and not gone to Ellen.

Which makes me wonder what Smartmatic KNOWS and DOESN’T KNOW about how an automated election is supposed to work in a democracy. The Philippines, for all its flaws, prides itself as being run NOT IN THE WAY Hugo Chavez runs Venezuela, where Smartmatic has played a significant role legitimizing Chavez’s authoritarian rule.

Over the past several days, I must confess, I have had arguments with certain people over how credible Smartmatic is in conducting a very crucial election for the Philippines next year.. It was impressed upon me very clearly by two people (whom I will not name except to say they are in the know) that Smartmatic would be crazy to smear its name and brand worldwide by conducting a fraudulent election here next year. The two added that if there is any cheating that would be done, it would not come from Smartmatic.

Another person, whom I talked to, said Smartmatic was not doing what it had originally agreed to do – that is, educate the stakeholders about its product. Stakeholders mean – the voters and those who will directly be in charge of the voting machines. The source did not mean PR either. But actual training for these various stakeholders on the ground down to the grassroots level. The source described the Smartmatic machines as “just like a fax machine” that transmits data electronically.

Now, Smartmatic’s letter makes me wonder if the company knows how a democratic election is supposed to work. I mean, it’s very basic. You don’t hire journalists to do PR for you.

I know Filipino politicians do it all the time – hire working journalists to write PR pieces for them disguised as news. That’s what Smartmatic wants Ellen to do.

That’s not how the fourth estate – journalism – is supposed to work if it is to serve the public. Filipino readers have the right to know whether what they are reading as news was really gathered by the writer to the best of his or her ability and fairness of judgement and not because she was secretly hired by a third party.

Tell you what, Smartmatic, hire all the journalists in Manila and the provinces that you want. But publicly release the roster of your hired help. Fair for you, fair for the journalists who want to earn more, and fair for the reading public who read their write-ups.

Hasta luego, Samira.

_______________________________

Ellen’s Malaya column – October 12, 2009

Smartmatic’s insulting proposal

LAST Friday, I got this strange letter from a certain Samira Saba of Smartmatic, the Dutch firm that partnered with the local Total Information Management and won the P7.2 billion contract for the nationwide automation of the 2010 elections.

Here’s the letter:

Dear Mrs. Ellen

“My name is Samira Saba and I work at Smartmatic as the Marketing and Communications Manager (www.smartmatic.com).

“I have checked your blog and I find it quite interesting. I can see the articles published are responsible, and show that you as a rule strive to inform and educate your readers. For instance, the article “Rock the vote!”

“I would like to know if you have the time and the interest of writing some articles regarding the following subjects:

1) Election automation worldwide, and positive experiences in various countries.

2) Election automation in the Philippines, past and present.

3) Different technologies to automate an election. Perspectives and comparisons: shortcomings, advantages, political implications.

4) Smartmatic technology in particular (in this case, we would of course furnish appropriate materials to the required depth).

“If you are interested in adding our organization as a regular client for your freelance writer services, we can define the extent and number of articles you could write monthly. I will be glad to give you more details and answer the questions you may have.

“If your answer to the above is positive, then I would appreciate a quotation for your services, with a target of two articles published per month to begin with.

“I look forward to hearing from you the soonest.”

It was signed by Ms. Saba.

I find the letter insulting. It smacks of bribery. I had to take several deep breaths and reminded myself that I should not write anything when I’m angry.

Saturday, I replied, asking her “What and where in my articles gave you the idea that my services are for sale?”

I’m still waiting for her reply.