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English 103
23 Oct 2009
remaining months before May 2010 will be crucial to the Filipinos but also
pamphlets and streamers posted and scattered around the place and
political rallies are about to give a bang. Are we excited for it? Or rather, we
Filipinos. Many are enthusiastic to know who will be the next set of officials
that will take over and lead the country for the upcoming years to come. The
optimism of most Filipinos is a sign of hope that we seek for good leaders.
We tend to look forward to a better tomorrow for our country as we put our
trust on leaders we voted. But despite all the hoping for a better and
years are still very much alive in the country. Election has been accompanied
fraud cases and issues have remained unsolved. With the failure of manual
Philippines. The new system that the Philippines will have in 2010 election
count the vote of a ballot through indentifying the shaded oval. With this new
electoral system, it is proper that we should know how this newly imposed
way of counting and canvassing will make a change for the country’s future.
manually done. Section 210 of the Omnibus Code of Elections describes the
shall be read aloud by the chairman of each precinct and tallied in tarots. It
ballot before tallied by the poll clerk and be passed on to the canvassing
For quite a long time, election in the Philippines has lacked freedom.
But in the election proper, during the counting process, vote tampering and
rigging is also a problem in the country. Even we would say that many
could still be accounted to the fact that the electoral system in the
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Arthur Jimenez, the teachers, who are the chairman of each precinct,
including the poll clerk and poll watchers experienced coercion during
her book How to fight election fraud, Sen. Miriam Santiago mentions that
destruction and theft of electoral returns as well (72). These situations make
us realize that manual voting is very vulnerable to election fraud in the sense
tampering could ignite turmoil and rebellion on the people (A13). The lack of
freedom in elections would not only diminish our democracy but also
process, Santiago tells us that there was deliberate misrecording in the tally
ballot filled for counting (72). Even Jimenez describes to the researcher how
tarots in tally sheets are miscopied by the poll clerk deliberately. Imagine a 4
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votes are counted and results are canvassed in the local precincts, ballot-box
containing the vote returns and results are transported to the municipal or
city office for further tabulation. Then the municipal or city results are
passed on the national level for final counting of winners (126-139). This
the results from the local precinct. There is also theft and destruction that
has happened along the way with the election returns. Sometimes, lives of
(Santiago 72). Most of the time, cases like this would look like as if nothing
had happened. But this problem would make people’s votes and hope gone
Doronila says that for a long time, official results that are being
elections, we could notice that it would take months before results are
finalized. This problem during the election shows how disorderly the election
in the Philippines could be especially in the canvassing. For one reason, the
asserted that the opportunities for altering results have been perceived as a
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result of the delay of declaring official results. This had lead to the
leadership transition in the country though the years (A1). The rigorous
would connect each 7100 islands, 90 million people with each other. This
means it would be hard to have the results finalized and announced as soon
as possible after the casting of votes. Jimenez mentioned also that the longer
the election results will be finalized, the more unstable the results would be.
violence during the actual election and the tiresome months of waiting for
the final official results, we end up with the question “how valid are the
Thus the researcher believes that there is a need for reviewing the flaws of
ballot-box manual system of election and propose a new system that would
be best and fitting to solve the lack of freedom, honesty and order in the
country.
Philippines has been prevalently troubled by many cases of election fraud for
buying, and electoral fraud that always ruin the elections in the country (BBC
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News). We could point out that one of the underlying problems in our
country’s election is the use ballot-box system during casting of votes. This
manual election system has caused the slow pace of the election and thus
Center for Media Freedom and Democracy of the Philippines reported that 3
days after the election day, official COMELEC count for the Senate elections
was laboriously plodding into the thousands. On the other hand, TV networks
counts were already past the millions. It could be possible that the difference
of count and time provides the window of opportunity for election operators
to manipulate the count as the weeks drag on, and to undermine the
Philippines. This is the time when we Filipinos cast our votes again and
decide who we will choose as leaders that will run the country for next 6
the form of election we have been using for quite a long time. But on the
should see to it that this 2010 elections will be free, fair and orderly. In an
article by Averdano et. al, he cited that Sen. Escudero’s words that we
EMB. Given the fact that elections in the Philippines have always been
country’s EMB, has been proposing automation election system not only to
Network).
authority in our country today that has to undertake urgent electoral reforms
for the common good. He said also that the present state of the Philippine
is always critiqued for its four letter Fs, ‘flaws, fraud, failures and familial
dominance’ (1). He also mentions the sorry state of electoral process in the
country today, wherein there’s familial dominance, few efforts to correct the
flaws in the electoral system that leads to vote-rigging scandal, ballot box
agonizingly protracted vote count and murder of political leaders (2). The
researcher strongly believes that there is really a need for the country to
Pacific” of Prof. Ed. Garcia, Senior Policy Advisor of International Alert and
proposes that to deal with this evil, a house of peace must be built on four
these, Sarmiento said that COMELEC, similar to the house peace, must rest
believes that the COMELEC has a role to do with the electoral reforms in the
country. It is important that we should look for the best solution on how to
solve election fraud in the country by reviewing the flaws of the ballot-box
cheating and violence in the country. Institute for Political and Electoral
electoral dispute resolution can only be done if these reforms are intact and
functioning (9).
the casting and counting of votes wherein most cases of election fraud
Network, technology exists and plays a vital role in activities related to the
electoral process. The use of technology includes for instance the following
cast votes, to count and consolidate vote results and to publish election
No. 9369). Since May to July 2009, newspapers, television and other
with a full and nationwide automated poll election in the 2010 elections.
some republic acts of the Philippines that has been approved by the
government. This includes Republic Act No. 9369 approved last January 23,
2007 that emphasizes the responsibility and action of COMELEC for the
the advantages of this technology and its effect on the upcoming election.
leaders of the country (Alave and Ubac A-6). Sen. Angara words are
mobility among voters and also raises voter turnout by offering additional
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channels, widens access for citizens with disabilities, reduces cost, and
The promise of technology makes life easy. With AES, the results of
it more vulnerable for the results and ballot boxes altered and stolen as
weeks had already passed from the day of casting the votes (Doronila A-1, A-
13). COMELEC also asserts that election with AES will be simple wherein the
fraud. With the long records of election fraud cases in the Philippine, the
necessity of going for an electoral system that would best work or address
for the type of problem we have is very important. In his work Automating
elections: Electronic voting machines have made mistakes too, Verzola said
that the most common reason for abandoning manual elections and going
for automation is to eliminate the clerical errors that have been endemic of
manual election counts (1). In addition, the COMELEC mentioned that the
(Jimenez). Thus security is assured in an automated poll election and also our
votes.
credible and accurate, and express the will of the people. In this case, we
could say that freedom, honesty and order will be achieved through AES. In
addition, he asserted that any doubt with its results could stir political
‘economic mess’. This effective election can only happen if we will have from
clean, fair and credible elections (Senate of the Philippines paragraph 2). He
also affirms that the going for an automated electoral system is a crucial
step towards clean and honest elections though it won’t really be the total
cure for all election frauds that had existed and might also exist in 2010
elections. But at least, automating the polls will eliminate a lot of the human
The researcher could most probably reflect what Sen. Angara said
about the AES with the interview conducted with Jimenez. In a summarized
list, he mentions that AES could foremost remove the teacher from coercion
and hoodlum of the dirty politics in the Philippines. It would be a quicker and
easier way for the election process especially in the counting and canvassing
transparency is much achieve. Every one after the election will have access
with the results through internet and other official institutions such as
NAMFREL and KBP. They made the system resistant to hacking wherein
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tampering would turn out to be evident if there is any. With the given
achieve their goals in the upcoming election to the free, honest and orderly.
give a good transition of the positions in the government and have leaders
that the majority had chosen, but it is more of acquiring a system that would
address the existing cases election fraud in the country that had seemed to
economically. Jimenez gave his remarks on the promising effect of AES to the
2010 election by assuring that the counting and canvassing stage of election
will be at most free from the cheating and other means of manipulating the
results. Yet he leaves a remark that AES will not cure the entire problem in
our elections. Counting and canvassing is just part of it. He asks “how about
vote buying, stupidity and other coercion? How can we address it?” These
problems are not addressed by AES. But at most, he assures that the winner
of the election will be accurate. He said that there’s hope for the country, but
achieve the ideal concept we should have with our elections. That is, it is
free from any fraud cases due human intervention and corruption; there is
honesty in all means of knowing the truth about who has the most votes and
elections a success in the country. Let’s us all be ready and critical with the
every changes in the country. In the end, the success of the 2010 election is
up to us if we will be vigilant about the truth and the good for our country
Works Cited
searchterm=automation>.
Alave, Kristine, and Michael Lim Ubac. “‘Dream’ Polls Promised: Smartmatic
Averdano et. al. “Firm’s Pullout Very Suspicious, Say Gordon.” Philippine
pacific/6655079.stm>.
Doronilla, Amando. “Dirty Polls in 2010 Can Spark Revolt.” Philippine Daily
2006.
Santiago, Miriam Defensor. How to Fight Election Fraud. Metro Manila: Zita
Sarmiento, Rene. Building the House of Electoral Reforms for 2010 and
http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2009/0511_angara2.asp>.
References
http://aceproject.org/aceen/topics/et/et10/?
searchterm=automation.
Alave, K. and Ubac, L. (2009, July 5). Dream’ polls promised: Smartmatic
and A6.
Averdano et. al. (2009, June 30). Firm’s pullout very suspicious, say Gordon.
pacific/6655079.stm.
Doronilla, A. (2009, June 29) Dirty polls in 2010 can spark revolt. Philippine
Olivares-Cunanan, B. (2009, July 1): Go manual now and make our machines
Publishing Corporation.
Sarmiento, Rene. (2008, Feb 27). Building the House of Electoral Reforms for
http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2009/0511_angara2.asp.
have made mistakes too. HALAL Working Paper No.4. Social Science
Research Network.