" Vote buying is the most damaging crime that perpetuates corruption throughout the government system with the poor population as its biggest victim."
" Vote buying is the most damaging crime that perpetuates corruption throughout the government system with the poor population as its biggest victim."With barely a week to go before the midterm elections, the political stage is understandably fraught. The polls represent one of the most definite hallmarks of Philippine democracy, and the country’s ability to conduct clean and credible elections obviously carries a lot of political weight.
Some quarters, acting on self-interest, are hell-bent on discrediting the process even before it begins. The 2016 automated elections, despite being widely seen as one of the most credible and efficient in recent history, became the target of malicious allegations of cheating, with one case even reaching the Supreme Court sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.
And only recently a video showing pre-shaded ballots circulated online, supposedly proving that the polls would be rigged to favor certain candidates. Commission on Elections (Comelec) Executive Director Jose Tolentino called the video “obviously staged” and explained that there was no way that the vote counting machines (VCM) could detect the ultraviolet (UV) marks.
The UV mark in official ballots are part of its security features to preserve their authenticity but were not placed on the oval preceding the name of a candidate, Tolentino said, adding that every ballot has a QR code that contains its serial number and precinct assignment.
He explained further that If the UV marks of the Comelec and the NPO [National Printing Office] are not found on the ballot, the VCM will reject it. And the UV marks also have a specific composition, (the) ink. So, if you use a different composition, it won’t work. If you attempt to fake a ballot, it will be rejected.
Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said the poll body also used a unique kind of paper for the official ballots, in addition to the invisible markings that would be difficult to copy.
On Friday, Comelec announced that it had completed the review and certification of the last three source codes that will serve as necessary safeguards for the software components of the automated election system. They passed the scrutiny of both Pro V and V, their international certification entity, and local source code reviewers, Tolentino said.
“None of them [bore] any malicious code embedded in the source codes,” he declared.
For citizen-led initiative Democracy Watch, independent observers and analysts, it was automation that spelled the difference between “the dark days of manual elections” and the digital age, in which this level of security was possible.
“There was no turning back since. With automation minimizing human intervention, the succeeding elections saw faster and faster proclamations and fewer and fewer incidents of poll-related violence,” the group said in a statement.
Another positive development, Democracy Watch said, is Comelec finally taking the technological reins so to speak from private company Smartmatic after several elections cycle. The upcoming polls will see the poll body running the automated elections “completely on its own,” with Smartmatic’s role steadily diminishing over the last few cycles, from being involved in around 30 different processes in 2010, limited to a vendor and support role in 2019.
“It’s a testament to the soundness of the automated election system that it lends itself really well to being taught and transferred,” it said.
Confirming this assessment, all the nationwide surveys conducted after the 2016 polls indicate a broad and overwhelming confidence in the automated system. In particular, almost all respondents think that the release of the election results was fast (92 percent), that the conduct of the polls was orderly (93 percent), and that they didn’t observe any incidence of election-related violence (95 percent). Majority also described the results as believable (89 percent).
There were other noteworthy feats achieved during the 2016 polls also attributable to automation. More than 44 million Filipinos trooped to their respective precincts, which translated to an 81.7 percent turnout, one of the highest in recent memory. The process also saw the largest deployment of VCMs not only in the region but the world, with the incidence of glitches statistically negligible.
And just how fast was the transmission? Comelec was able to transmit some 86 percent of all the votes by election night, a feat considering the archipelagic layout of the country and a big diasporic population. This also represents a leap from the 59 and 57 percent recorded in 2010 and 2013, respectively. Ten days after the elections, almost all the 18,000 or so elective positions had been proclaimed.
But most importantly, the combination of these factors—speed and efficiency—led to an overwhelming integrity and credibility of a process that used to be plagued by fraud, violence, and inefficiency.
This track record, in addition to further efforts by Comelec and other stakeholders, ought to overshadow the obviously politicized efforts to discredit what has turned out to be a credible and transparent system, a boon for Philippine democracy and instrumental in the seamless transfer of power and legitimacy of the candidates who had won.
And as much as there is trust in the system, we must remain vigilant. Vote buying has become the default option for some politicians to cheat their way to another corrupt term. How else can they recover the hundreds of millions of cash doled out on the final days before elections?
Vote buying is the most damaging crime that perpetuates corruption throughout the government system with the poor population as its biggest victim. The COMELEC should focus more resources and use military force if need be to apprehend and prosecute these criminals who are undermining the values of our democracy.
The upcoming polls represent another chance for the country—not just the government—to elect leaders with integrity and the qualifications for public service. A chance to demonstrate that our democracy remains to be true and robust. As citizens, you can do your part. There are opportunities in particular for our young and energetic voters to volunteer, for instance to the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting through one’s parish.
Let us be aware and act to protect our democracy.