ANNOUNCEMENT
Continuing Registration is ongoing. Monday through Friday, office hours. Register at the Office of the Election Officer in your city or municipality, but watch out for satellite registration activities that may be scheduled in your community. Bring a valid ID, such as a school ID, a company ID, a driver's license or a passport. However, you may be asked to present additional proof of age or residence.
I moved to
Can you say “overacting?”
The public response to Chairman Jose Melo’s avowed nightmare scenario seems overboard, doesn’t it?
Of course no one wants the elections to be canceled – least of all the COMELEC. What good would that do us?
Think about it for awhile. These reactions to what Melo said are underpinned by one basic idea: that no one has actually considered the possibility that some disgruntled group might actually file a case with the Supreme Court seeking to enjoin automation, with the Court actually issuing a temporary restraining order, or – worse – not issuing a TRO and then, with the elections coming up, suddenly voiding the automation contract. If that happens close enough to the polls, then how can the COMELEC possibly prepare for an election?
Legarda said in a statement: “Who gets to benefit from a no-election scenario? Isn’t it the administration? Now comes the Comelec doing a mind conditioning of its own, wittingly or unwittingly, by saying that losing bidders may sue to stop not only poll automation but the election itself.”
First of all, losing bidders cannot sue. And mind conditioning? Hardly. Call it prudence instead, that we are telling the people what the possibilities are without sugar-coating the more nasty ones. The truth is, the people must know that if and when a suit is brought before the SC to shoot down automation, they must be doubly vigilant that it is not frivolous or founded on some misplace professional pride or based on a warped idea of patriotism.
More to the point, the public must know that their rests a very significant responsibility on the shoulders of the SC to be very careful about what suits to entertain and – as a learning from the 2004 experience – to be very cautious about scuttling the project so close to election day.
Escudero, chair of the Senate oversight committee on poll automation, said if the bidding process was above board, “he (Melo) should be able to sleep well.”
With all due respect to the Senator, a spotless bidding process does not guarantee that no suits will be filed. It’s not only the bidders that can bring suit, after all. The automation contract is an expenditure of public funds, hence it can be a very tasty target for a taxpayer’s suit. Which means that practically anyone can gun for it. This includes people who are fronting for losing bidders and anyone who thinks that he knows better than a Constitutional body how it’s job should be done. In the latter category, count everyone who thinks that automation should not be nationwide, or should not be for all races. Include also everyone who claims to know information technology and has a thousand and one ideas on how things should be conducted. And of course, it is the blind man who ignores that there is a certain nihilistic thrill to scuttling a government project of this magnitude.
Secretary Gonzalez said talk of a no-election would only “fan the sinister imagination of critics.” He said there would “always” be elections because “we can always revert to the old [manual] system.”
True enough. But then again, what if the SC were to void the contract too close to the elections? Say, three months before? We all would like to think that the SC would not do such a thing, but what if it did? Are we supposed to ignore that possibility and so, not prepare for it?
Because really, that’s all there is to it: acknowledging the possibility of a problem and preparing for it. We know that there is no way we can guarantee that some person or group won’t get it into their heads to second-guess the COMELEC. The least we can do, therefore, is to warn the public – and everyone else who might find it in their power to do the right thing – of the dire consequences of a suit filed late, or an SC decision promulgated even later.
The supplemental budget for automation was submitted to the Department of Budget and Management even before Congress went on recess for the holidays. Unfortunately, the DBM hasn’t forwarded that budget to Congress. This obviously impacts automation timetables and nothing will be quite as screwed as voter ed.
Again.
On Monday, COMELEC offices will start accepting applications for registration again. If you’re a first time voter, go to the bagongbotante site to download application forms. Detailed instructions are on the site as well.
Otherwise, you could just go to the COMELEC office in your city or municipality and get your forms there.
Like SMS campaigning, internet campaigning will boom for 2010. Of course, I don’t know how savvy the politicians will be at using cyperspace realty, but that’s their problem.
The COMELEC – or at least my department – will be ramping up our on-line presence not just to benefit the wired here at home, but also to bring information a wee bit closer to the OFWs.
Cue complaints: “But not all OFW’s have access to the internet!” “Some don’t even know how to use computers!” And so on.
The same thing can be said of Filipinos here: not everyone has access to the ‘net, and not everyone knows how to use a computer. And people who go to internet cafe’s don’t really go to be educated about their civic duty.
So why bother?
First: information that’s put out on the ‘net stays there. Anyone can come and look and learn at any time. It’s not like a newspaper ad or primer that only one or two people get to read before it gets thrown away or forgotten in some dark corner.
Second: Having the information on the web means voter educators can download the info and use it in their activities. And surely, any voter educator’s first stop will be the internet. There are a lot of good voter ed sites – like the ACE project – but we also aim to be directly usable by Filipino voters.
Third: Candidates’ websites will not point to each other, obviously. So the voter has to have a place to go where he can jump to any candidate that catches his fancy. This eliminates the need for the voter to scour the net just to find info on a candidate, hopefully leading to a more informed electorate.
Fourth: the idea of a COMELEC run candidate portal is especially promising for OFWs who will be participating in the Overseas Absentee Voting system. While yes, not all of them will be savvy, some of them are and those who are can share the information that they get from our site. We can probably also ask the various consulates to dedicate one p.c. to our website and promote its use.
I can probably name a few more reasons why this is a worthwhile undertaking, but the bottom line is simply this: it’s the 21st century! Time to start thinking like we’re living in it.
No one doubts the effectivity of SMS – or text messaging – as a tool for mobilization. But what about as a way of campaigning?
Well that depends, eh?
If SMS is used as a means of building a sense of community, then it’s pretty darn powerful. The way that works is that SMS is used to excite the faithful, more than as a way to rope in undecideds. Build a strong enough sense of community and your supporters end up doing the campaigning for you. SMS then becomes just a means of linking those supporters up and fostering their sense of being part of your movement.
On the other hand, if SMS is seen as a way of convincing undecideds, it is likely to fall flat on its face. For one thing, bombarding random numbers with generic ‘vote-for-me’ messages can be very off-putting: the message lacks context and borders on the intrusive.
However it is used, I’m very confident that SMS will play a major role in the upcoming elections. Which begs the question: what will we do about it? Heck. Never mind what we’re gonna do about it – I suppose the question ought to be should SMS use for campaigning even be regulated?
One of the top things to consider, of course, is the spending cap. If you don’t regulate SMS, how do you compute the costs associated with SMS campaigning so that it can be considered in determining whether a candidate has gone over the spending limit? Come to think of it, even if you do regulate, the issue remains: exactly do you compute costs?
And what about SMS spamming? As far as I know, the NTC has rules enough for that, but then again, you know how it gets at campaign time. Everyone be asking: “I got a message from this candidate? Allowed ba yan? What is the COMELEC doing about it?”
With questions like these and more, SMS campaigning is obviously going to be a tricky issue. Better get on it right away then, eh?
That didn’t sound right.
Or maybe it did.
Tonight, my dog finally got to knock boots with the neighbor’s bitch. After being a pest about it all day – scratching up the gate and making all sorts of horrendous noises – my batty mongrel hit paydirt.
Not bad for a dog so old he only has stubs where his fangs used to be.Whatta way t start the new year.
wo0t!
wo0t! Let the games begin!!!
It’s almost here: the year before what might turn out to be the most important elections in recent memory. Just thinking about all the things that need to be done gives me hives.
The overarching need, of course, is to get started on the procurement of the automated election system.
About that – there seems to be a growing consensus that we should just lease the machines. That sounds good. After all, with a lease, there’ll be no worries about storage and maintenance. But will simply leasing the machines also mean that we will end up having to reinvent the wheel for every other election?
Take 2010 for instance. We leased the machines that we used in the 2008 ARMM polls. Now, we have to formulate a whole new Request for Proposal for 2010. If we purchased the machines in 2008, then we could already be working on getting the 2010 elections online, couldn’t we (at least for those areas that we can cover with the number of machines we have)?
Instead, everything is hanging on so many variables: will we get the money? will we get it on time? will we have enough time to adequately customize the machines? will we have time to satisfactorily work out the kinks?
Most everything else that needs to be done in 2009 really just spins-off from automation: generating public acceptance for the system, making sure voters know how to use the tech, that sort of thing. But that’s still a whole lot o’work.
Well at least there’s still some time left to take a deep breath. Too bad the air already reeks of gunpowder.
