Nth PCOS Question

            Ateneo Professor Lex Muga put it lightly when he disclosed his observation that the election results seem to reveal a 60-30-10 pattern. He did not claim that there was fraud in the election despite his discovery that in all the 16 canvass of ballots, the administration slate consistently got 60 percent of the votes, the UNA got 30 percent, while the independent candidates got 10 percent (see http://wew.interaksyon.com/article/64021/midterm-polls-a-month-after--fraud-doubts-linger-as-pcos-defects-surface).

The Comelec continues to deny the probability of electronic rigging. Contrary to the claim that the vote counts of the PCOS followed a pattern (60-30-10), Comelec is maintaining that the seeming symmetry in the results’ ratios is merely due to computer glitches caused by faulty CF cards. The results do not indicate any technical fraud or a mishandling of the elections.

Assuming that we accept this as a fact, should we feel comfortable about the workings of the PCOS?

The PCOS machines had cost our taxpayers billions of pesos. They were purchased not to make the work of the Comelec easier but to secure the credibilty and efficiency of the electoral process. As such, there should be no room for any question that will give rise to speculations and worries.

The alleged pattern disclosed by the results of the PCOS cannot just be brushed aside as product of computer glitches. The synchronized ratios that the machines have generated are alarming. They feed the people’s distrust of the technology and trigger the suspicion that the election body had played dirty with the people’s votes.

The PCOS machines had counted something more than a public opinion. They have scanned and tabulated the sovereign will of the people. Any error or possibility of error in their results must alarm us about the credibility of their functionings. The flimsy ratiocination of the Comelec will not be sufficient to dispel serious questions on the manner by which it has handled the past elections. Understandably, the Comelec will defend the PCOS against the assaults of critics since they were conceived as its saving grace from previous controversies. However, its blanket denial of the questions about the PCOS is highly reprehensible. Its constitutional duty is to safeguard the elections and not to shield any election system from public questions and scrutiny. Failing in its constitutional duty, the Comelec should be made accountable for violation of its mandate. More than giving a general response to the critics’ claim of high-handed rigging, the election body owes us a credible accounting of how it has administered the last election. 

Questions related to the 2016 Presidential election have dominated the broadcast and print media already. News about government and politics are linked to the coming Presidential election. For sure, the Comelec will find means to make its works easier again. In fact, it has intimited its inclination to use same PCOS machines in 2016. Unfortunately, such intimations have only worsened the continuing distrust on the system that the Comelec has adopted in running the elections. The Comelec officials have to deal with the doubts about the automated election system to assure that the next elections will be more acceptable and trustworthy. They should not fail in rectifying whatever mistakes that they have committed during the past elections. Whether they like or not, the PCOS is one of the biggest mistakes that they have to account for and rectify before the next election. This must be so because the future of the country is too high a price to gamble away for these dubious machines.