As a first time voter next year, I feel very excited and anxious to exercise my right of suffrage. Automated or not, as long as there would be elections ( the Con-Ass move could stop the elections if we let them push through). Automation is a really huge step and I don't know if our Pearl of the Orient will be able to take such. Automation if done right, we'll have clean and accurate elections but if done wrong, we'll be lost in a system we've never encountered before which could result in a tilted democracy, another people power, or a civil war. It's a sad fact that losing candidates will never concede and may in fact find bugs in the hurried automation system to come up with unfounded allegations which in turn could unseat the real people's choice or the other way around.
The proposed automation for 2010 was on, or so the COMELEC thought, until they faced the senators. Sen. Escudero is very critical of the mechanics of the bidding and of the background of the winning bidder, Smartmatic-TIM partnership. Smartmatic is based in Barbados, an island nation in the carribean and is partly owned by the Venezuelan government. Hugo Chavez is the Venezuelan president and will likely to keep his post decades from now, thanks to Smartmatic? Some critics said that the referendum of extending Chavez's term indifinitely was handled by Smartmatic and the "yes" vote won inspite of massive protests against it. Does Sen. Escudero fear that the same could happen here?
TIM or Total Information Management is the Filipino partner of Smartmatic. According to the 1987 constitution, Filipinos should own at least 60% of any business ventures in the Philippines. News reports during the week infrormed of the withdrawal of TIM from the partnership due to inability to meet the 60% requirement needed but some say it is because Smartmatic refused to pay Jose Mari Antunez 500 Million pesos. Antunez's ties to the FG was also cited but he was quick to shrug it off.
Unless this Smartmatic-TIM marriage will work out, then 2010 will be old school.
by: Ivar
6/2/09 11:09 P.M.
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