vonjobi: wow, congratulations! kelan ang trip? i hope i'll be around when you come. had a good time with diosa last...
Keith Bacongco: Knowing Nograles and his Big Boss...garapalan na lang talaga.
Vinia Datinguinoo Mukherjee: Congratulations, PCIJ! Mabuhay kayo!
Lead Philippines: But without credible mass media there, what is left to protect the people..?
vonjobi: it's juned sOniDo.

Latest Message 5 months ago

hopeless_race : Lets not just focus sa mga malversation of funds, sa mga overpricing..ating pagtuunan ng atensyon ang diskarte ng mga politiko na umuutang ng bilyon bilyon sa gobyerno."Small time" ang ibang pamamaraan ng pangungurakot kumpara sa pag-utang sa gobyerno ng bilyon na tunay ngang masasabing "pinaka big-time" at wala pang sabit.
hopeless_race : Mukhang tikom ang bibig ng lahat pagdating sa diskarte ng mga politiko sa pagutang ng mga bilyon bilyon sa gobyerno na tinatakbuhan. Itong pamamaraan na ito ang tunay na kumakain ng malaking porsyento ng ating national budget batay na din sa sinasabi ng world bank.
hopeless_race : Pakisilip naman po ang mga utang ni Villar sa BSP, ang mga utang nila RAMON JACINTO, RONNIE ZAMORA, JOE DE VENECIA at madami pang ibang mga pulitiko. Iilan lamang yan sa mga nababanggit sa balita na may mga malalaking utang sa gobyerno.
hopeless_race : Nagmimistulang "small time" lamang ang malversation of funds kumpara sa laki ng kinakamal ng mga umuutang sa gobyerno. At ito ay malinaw na natatakbuhan dahil hindi nga naman pwede makulong ang may-ari ng kumpanya sa pagkaka-utang lamang. Tunay na mga tuso at magagaling sa batas itong mga politiko natin. Masasabi ko na malamang lahat ng mga politiko ganito ang diskarte...wala pang kulong.
hopeless_race : PCIJ pkitingnan naman po ang mga gaya ni Villar na my malaking utang sa Gobyerno pero tinatakbuhan. Magtatayo ng kumpanya at uutang ng bilyon bilyon sa gobyerno ng walang balak bayaran. Tunay ngang walang nakukulong sa utang...ito ang prinsipyo ginagamit ng mga politiko ntin kaya nakakapagtaka kung san napupunta ang daang bilyong pera ng gobyerno.
hopeless_race : Sana itreat naman po ng media ang hacienda luisita at mendiola massacre na parang MAGUINADANAO MASSACRE. Ipublicized ang mga katotohanan at ipakita sa tao ang karumaldumal na pinaggagawa sa mga farmers dun. Untouchable po ba sila cory at danding at hindi magawang batikusin ng media about these two massacres?
hopeless_race : Kapag napaguusapan ang mendiola at hacienda luisita massacre ay parang walang nangyari at parang hindi big deal. Anu po ba ang pinagkaiba ng dalawang nabanggit na massacre sa maguindanao massacre?
hopeless_race : Its sad that we pinoys are blind to the fact of what had happened in mendiola and hacienda luisita. Ang tanong..bakit ang media ay hindi manlang matackle ang ganitong usapin? Takot ba sila kay cory at danding?
hopeless_race : Wilkins" brand, for P1.4 billion.-1999 Sugarland Multi-Food Corp. for P2.9 billion 2001- Purefoods Corp P7 billion P60 billion Coca-Cola ... See More 2002- Cosmos Bottling Corp. from RFM Corp. for P14.1 billion October 2008- GSIS' shares in Meralco worth PHP30 Billion. December 2008- country's biggest oil refiner, Petron Corporation. international company shopping spree: Australian boutique brewer J. Boag and Son for A$96 million in 2000. $97 million for Thai Amarit Brewery Ltd $35.5 mi
hopeless_race : Gud am..glad to be back.
jr_lad : rip mr. alecks pabico. you'll be greatly missed!
sevens21 : Dati input mo lng name at SSS ID makukuha mo agad STATIC INFO...
sevens21 : tawag ka sa HOTLINE nila walang ANSWER grrr we need pa namn ng static info SSS Gising!!!
sevens21 : Gawa naman po kayo ng article about SSS. Pangit ng site nila dali ma blocked ng account
guest_899 : we must check the background of each potential candidates to avoid having another big mistake like GMA
guest_899 : congratulations to PCIJ, more power and God Bless !
jazzymuver : how did Arroyo swallow that kind of things!! how come that she just spend the money our countrymen for her own sake!!
guest_3664 : i would be glad if u can include the investigation of the manner public officials announce infra projects as per COA regulation. It is frustrating to see their faces on the tarpaulin instead of the prescribed information like name of project, date of implementation,amount of contract, source/s of fund, among other things. This is very rampant here in Marikina. Thanks and more power on your noble endeavors. We need people like you to have make our country great again.
jhanz_08 : im making research on R.A 9136...with rgards to the privatization of NPC..could someone out there can let me understand more bout this matter?why was monopoly dismantled?email me..jhanycem@yahoo.com...thanks much
erika marie : P.S.:) my paper is due next week and i do hope someone could provide me these reports coming from reliable resources thank you ulit.
erika marie : P.S.
guest_4275 : i am currently doing a study regarding political killings in the philippines. could someone out there please send me human rights reports under Aquino and Ramos administration. you could send it at my email: erikamariet@yahoo.com your response would surely be very much appreciated. thank you everyone. god bless.
guest_4275 : i am currently doing a study for my paper regarding political killings in the philippines. i noted that there are no human rights reports during the Aquino and Ramos administration. could someone out there please send me reports regarding these matter? i do hope these reports came from reliable resources you could send it in my email; erikamariet@yahoo.comyour response would surely be appreciated. thanks everyone. god bless.
jayson bourne : gusto ko po maging member ng PCIJ, panu po ba? may application po ba? sana mapadalhan nyo ako ng info sa email ko... www.jboxpenshoppe@yahoo.com
jayson bourne : cory is OK, but kris & Noynoy sensationalize masyado...
guest_9891 : LABAN pa rin!
meow : boycotts worked during marcos years. how about doing it now against the businesses of the con-ass congressmen?
meow : aside from 168, what other establishments can we boycott that belong to the arroyos and their cronies?
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Full automation of electoral system in place by 2010?

Posted by: Alecks P. Pabico | June 9, 2006 at 5:21 pm
Filed under: Comelec Watch, Congress Watch

FULL automation of the country’s electoral system by 2010 is anticipated with the approval of the House of Representatives on third and final reading of a bill amending the election automation law (Republic Act No. 8436) two days before Congress adjourned its second regular session.

With congressmen voting overwhelmingly in its favor, 163-2 (with one abstention), House Bill No. 5352 has been hailed to remedy the “excessively technology-specific” provisions of RA 8436 that Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr., chairman of the sponsoring Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms, says have “rendered the Commission on Elections (Comelec) inutile to implement the law effectively and without controversy.”

With HB 5352’s passage, the House now awaits the approval of the bill’s counterpart in the Senate, which was only able to conclude interpellations on Senate Bill No. 2231 before it adjourned sessions yesterday. The Senate bill provides for the adoption of an Automated Election System (AES) to modernize the electoral process based on the most appropriate and cost-effective technology to be recommended by an advisory council.

While RA 8436, enacted in 1997, authorized the Comelec to use an automated election system as early as the 1998 elections for the voting and canvassing of votes, the law has to this day not been fully implemented.

The Comelec is partly to blame for this, as the poll body is accused of bungling its election modernization program, wasting P2.3 billion in the process, including P1 billion already paid to a Korean firm-led consortium to purchase automated counting machines for the May 2004 elections.

The P1.3-billion contract with Mega Pacific e-Solutions, was invalidated by the Supreme Court in January 2004 because of glaring irregularities that attended the bidding process. The Court declared the Comelec and its concerned officials were culpable of grave abuse of discretion in awarding the contract to an unqualified bidder (Mega Pacific e-Solutions) which was incorporated 11 days before the submission of bids; changing the bid specifications in the middle of the evaluation; and awarding the contract prior to the report of the bids and awards committee.

The bids committee was also found to have arbitrarily prescribed eligibility requirements that favored a particular bidder, Mega Pacific Consortium.

But electoral reform advocates and information technology professionals led by the Information Technology Foundation of the Philippines (ITFP) have also questioned the machine specifications provided in the law which, they say, seems to favor a particular technology — in this case, the optical mark sense system involving an automated vote-counting machine that scans paper ballots with its built-in optical mark reader.

In response to this criticism, Locsin says the amendatory HB 5352 now provides for minimum capabilities that effectively amends Section 7 of RA 8436 enumerating the features of the automation system. Under Section 4 of the bill, the new parameters have been defined as follows:

adequate security against unauthorized access;
accuracy in recording and reading of votes as well as tabulation, consolidation/canvassing and transmission of results;
error recovery in case of non-catastrophic failure of device;
system integrity, to ensure physical stability and functioning of the vote recording and counting process;
provision for voter-verified paper audit trail;
system audit ability, which provides supporting documentation for verifying the correctness of reported election results;
an election management system for preparing ballots and programs for use in the casting and counting of votes and to consolidate, report and display election results in the shortest possible time;
accessibility to illiterates and other disabled voters;
vote tabulating program for election, referendum or plebiscites;
accurate ballot counters; and
data retention.

Augusto Lagman, technology chief of the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel), welcomes this development as the bill has addressed their concern to make the election automation law technology-neutral. “This is consistent with what we’ve been advocating for because it can allow the use of new technologies that become available,” he says.

Akbayan party-list Rep. Loretta Ann Rosales, an electoral reform advocate, agrees, citing the fact that the bill contains four important amendments on the issue of election automation.

More than removing the tailor-fit specifications, though, the bill, she said, also now proposes the use of appropriate technology in all four phases of the elections — from voting, counting, canvassing to the electronic transmission of election results.

Rosales also lauds the proposal to have the automation implemented on a stagerred basis for next year’s mid-term elections, beginning with the National Capital Region, Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, and at least three other regions to be designated by the Comelec.

In case the Comelec fails to implement the automation, a default provision provides for reverting to the manual mode of elections.

One other significant amendment introduced in the bill, Rosales adds, addresses the issue of horsetrading. Under HB 5352, substitution of candidates will only be allowed in case of death or permanent disability. This removes withdrawal and disqualificiation among the causes for candidate substitution in the Omnibus Election Code.

Download HB 5352 here.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 9th, 2006 and is filed under Comelec Watch, Congress Watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 people have left comments

Useless HB because of ‘inutile’ Senate…sabi nga ni Serge digital camera na lang daw to take photos of election return hrrrr, hrrrr, hrrrrr

gwaping wrote on June 9, 2006 - 5:29 pm | Visit Link

[...] WHILE acknowledging that automation has a role to play in modernizing our elections, which remains a pitiful throwback from the first-ever held local polls in Bulacan more than a century ago, local information technology pioneer Roberto Verzola thinks the real problem does not lie with having an antiquated electoral system but with the fact that the cheats don’t get punished at all. [...]

INSIDE PCIJ: Stories behind our stories » Punishing the cheats, not election automation, is real solution — local IT pioneer wrote on June 9, 2006 - 7:33 pm | Visit Link

On electoral reforms,

“The Comelec is partly to blame for this, as the poll body is accused of bungling its election modernization program, wasting P2.3 billion … ”

Since Abalos will not resign, Congress must pass an ammendment that would
1) abolish the present COMELEC and form a new body,
2) change the process of the appointments to the commission
3) remove from the COMELEC jurisdiction hearings on election protests,

Reform and automation undertaken by present COMELEC is hopelessly not credible. Forming a new Commission is proirity.

Juan Makabayan wrote on June 10, 2006 - 12:56 pm | Visit Link

[...] The system of election here in the Philippines is still outdated. We still have to write down each of the candidates name. I guess we will be expecting the full automation of the electoral system in 2010 according to PCIJ’s report. [...]

rockersworld.com » Went out and voted wrote on May 14, 2007 - 1:20 pm | Visit Link