"This was the old term for “fake news.”"
"This was the old term for “fake news.”"
Up until the late '90s, “kuryente” was the media shortcut for fake news.
A story appearing out of the blue without any solid evidence or if attributed to somebody would eventually be denied is considered "kuryente." A bum steer. A lot of B.S. Today, even stories with some smattering of facts and attribution which at first glance appear to be solid turn out to be "kuryente."
With a proliferation of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, we are now being bombarded with more sophisticated "kuryente" types usually masquerading as advocacy statements or studies by some pedigreed person or institution, which later turn out to be hyped and sponsored materials promoting a certain agenda blurring the lines between real journalistic work and propaganda.
The latest brouhaha over a twitter feed about a so-called "attempt to insert a dangerous provision in the 2021 budget allowing the Comelec to waive safeguards in the automated election system" which has engendered all kinds of spooky statements and conspiracy theories from people who should know better, is one such sponsored work.
Of course, the hyperventilated, condemnatory statements mostly from the Yellow crowd about this feed will die a natural death like all the others they have spewed out before which were based on half truths and even proferred hype. By making a big thing out of a Twitter feed which turned out to be outright misinformation, these guys are now being exposed as either undiscerning, lazy or complicit in this brazen, contemptuous attempt to perpetuate the highly irregular and problematic Smartmatic automated election system (AES) which has only disgraced our country and brought harm and ruin to our electoral processes since we automated five elections ago. .
Apparently, that tweet of a certain Emil Maranon identified as the former chief of staff of then Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes, Jr. warning about "waiving safeguards" was actually a direct shot-across-the-vow meant to stop on its track the possible use of the hybrid electoral system (HES) developed by Filipino electoral and IT experts which appears to be gaining adherents among keen observers of automated electoral systems, here and abroad.
The entry of HES or even other AES providers will dampen if not completely doom SMARTMATIC's stranglehold on the Comelec and our electoral processes from which it has gained billions of pesos in profits and access to the highest officials of the land. Maranon and his principals cannot let that happen.
Of course, Maranon can always claim, as he did, that the attempted "insertion"was meant to do away with the "safeguards" provided for under RA 8436 or the automated election law. That is farthest from the truth as will be explained shortly.
The budgetary provision reads "…any law to the contrary and to preserve the integrity of the election system, the Comelec shall provide new equipment, materials and software to be used in the conduct of the forthcoming national elections.." The intention was clear: there is a need to open up the procurement process to ensure that we get only the best and most responsive and responsible proposals and proponents to handle the 2022 elections. Are we doing away with the requirements under the procurement law? No. Not at all.
We are just making sure that we do not repeat the mistakes we made in the past five automated elections (including the ARMM in 2008). Lessons learned from our sad and highly problematic experience in the past where we were left with only one "qualified"proponent – Smartmatic – due to a phrase in Section 12 of the automated election law (RA 8436 as amended by RA 9369) which fit the company to a T. That phrase stated : "the system to be procured must have demonstrated capability and been successfully used in a prior electoral exercise, here and abroad."
There should be nothing wrong with that save for the fact that sometime in the past when we were scouting around for a "proven and dependable system" even Smartmatic was not qualified. Still, the Comelec managed to massage its qualification enabling it to bid and made to win. How and why that happened remained a mystery for some time but now with the continuous changes in the manner by which the Comelec, abetted by the intervention of high government officials including those in Congress through the annual appropriations law, managed to go around the terms of procurement, we are stuck with Smartmatic – a situation which Maranon and his principals are moving to ensure by whatever means possible.
To be continued