Sereno lied on her track record

Outlook

By: Rigoberto Tiglao
Philippine Daily Inquirer

12:42 am | Thursday, August 30th, 2012

“Fresh start,” “Excellent choice,” “Sereno’s big task”—the headlines were on the appointment of Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno. C’mon now. Wasn’t the story that the appointment was so unexpected and shocking that no one, not even any of President Aquino’s most ardent apologists, had expected he would make such an in-your-face decision? Wasn’t it so controversial that nine of the 13 Supreme Court associate justices boycotted the swearing in of their unwanted Chief?

Isn’t it so obvious that Sereno’s real “qualification” was that she was the only nominee Mr. Aquino could be 100-percent sure would do his bidding? She has proven this beyond doubt in the last two years, especially when she outdid Hacienda Luisita’s lawyers in arguing for P10-billion compensation for the President’s clan.

“She is the first, and hopefully the last associate justice and Chief Justice not to have even seen the insides of a courtroom,” a top lawyer wryly commented. “The chances of somebody with her qualifications fairly becoming Chief Justice—without Aquino’s need to appoint a puppet—is the same as your chances of winning the lotto,” another barrister remarked.

A moral, principled person would have resisted the temptation to glorify one’s ego, and decline a post she knows in her heart she isn’t qualified for, in order to avoid the risk of damaging one of the three pillars of the Republic. Yet Sereno—an obscure law professor before Mr. Aquino made her his first associate justice in 2010—rushed to campaign for the post as soon as she was nominated, and quickly set up a Facebook account named “Why Justice Sereno should be appointed as Chief Justice.”

Read her biodata posted there, and it’s the ho-hum life of a lackluster academic, disinterested in some noble cause (in contrast, say, to feminist fighter candidate Katrina Legarda), doing research and writing unremarkable papers here and there as hundreds of law-school instructors do.

Not even a full professor, she’s mediocre, compared to academic candidates like Raul Pangalangan, who not only has a Ph.D. in law from Harvard but two postdoctoral degrees. She wasn’t outstanding enough to be a law-school dean like five other nominees to the post. In the last 10 years, she published only six short articles on legal issues, mostly on commercial law—an embarrassing output for an academic.

Mr. Aquino claimed that he chose Sereno because “she can best reform the judiciary.” But nowhere in her entire career did she show any passionate interest in judicial reform. The only claim for this is the item she listed in her CV: “Principal Consultant, Law and Economics/Project on Judicial Reform (UNDP-Supreme Court).” However, that falsely portrays that she had the principal role in the high court’s historic ongoing reform program, begun in 1998 and managed by the chief justices since Hilario Davide. The program has had hundreds of consultants for almost all aspects of the judicial system in the country, with “law and economics” just one of these.

Sereno’s interest has been in international commercial law, and her major participation in the disposition of justice has been in short, dollar-paying international engagements, providing research on aspects of the Philippine legal system for international bodies.

Her last private posting is an indication of a floundering career: “executive director” of the AIM Policy Center—a misnomer for a moribund unit whose main activity in the past many years has been to organize the press launch of studies of other institutes and scholars.

One would have to fabricate things to spruce up an unremarkable legal career to be deserving of a post in the high tribunal—and she did.

As one of her purported major accomplishments to justify her appointment as associate justice in 2010, Sereno claimed, as the Palace statement put it, that “she was co-counsel with Justice Florentino Feliciano” in the Fraport case before the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes. That claim has been in her biodata posted in the high court’s website, and reported in all news articles on her background.

That’s a lie. Sereno is not among the nine counsels representing the government in the Centre’s records. There weren’t “co-counsels” in that case. The truth is that she was merely the personal legal researcher and documentation lawyer of the 77-year-old Feliciano, and not of the government.

In fact, when she publicly claimed credit for the Republic’s winning the case, the government’s New York-based lead private counsel, White & Case’s senior partner Carolyn Lamm, was so mad that she went to the country to demand that the Solicitor General correct Sereno’s claim. (The government won in the Centre’s first decision in 2007, which was however annulled in 2010, with the case resuming in July 2012.)

Probably realizing that her false claim will be put to closer scrutiny with her nomination as Chief Justice, Sereno deleted it in the curriculum vitae she submitted to the Judicial and Bar Council and posted in her Facebook account.

If she really doesn’t have the qualifications and experience to be in the Supreme Court, then who has been writing—and will write—her judgments in the tribunal? Can she categorically say that she did not consult with Mr. Aquino’s lawyers for her kilometric conclusions, especially in the cases involving the Truth Commission, Hacienda Luisita, and former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s right to travel abroad—which echoed, even amplified, the Palace’s thinking? Has she ever gone against Mr. Aquino’s line?

Mr. Aquino has undertaken a coup against the Republic: He has seized the Supreme Court and installed his factotum.

Deliberate deception

Strategic Perspective
Rene B. Azurin
Posted on 15 August 2012
Business World

OUTRIGHT DECEPTIONS are apparently permissible in what really appears to be a conspiracy to foist the Commission on Elections (Comelec)-favored Smartmatic automated election system on the Filipino people. This no longer surprises.

Perhaps as part of the "foisting" effort, the Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms of the House of Representatives called on Smartmatic-TIM Corp. to conduct "an end-to-end election simulation…to once and for all address the issue of accuracy." That "demo" -- a "mock election" with some 1,000 voters -- was done at the House last July 24 and 25. Votes were cast through a Smartmatic machine, the machine issued its count, and a manual verification of the count was then done to check if there were discrepancies between the electronic and the manual count. Presumably, Smartmatic used its best machine for the demo, one that it had thoroughly tested.

Unfortunately for Smartmatic and its conspirators, the actual results of the mock election revealed performance deficiencies in the Smartmatic precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machine, in the form of below-standard accuracy levels. As a result, Smartmatic was forced to fudge the figures it showed in its "Mock Elections Summary Report" (dated August 3rd) to make its machine appear more accurate than it actually was. Doubtless, the intention was to hide the deficiencies and effectively deceive the public.

The fudging was pointed out by Dr. Felix Muga II, mathematics professor at the Ateneo University. (The fudging was also noticed by many others.) For example, in the "senatorial" count, Smartmatic’s PCOS machine counted 6,184 votes and the manual verification showed an actual 6,309 votes, a difference of 125 votes. Smartmatic then reported that the "Percentage of Match between Manual and Electronic Count is 99.98019%," a figure that has no arithmetical basis and seems to have been just conjured out of thin air. Dr. Muga says, "The calculation is wrong since (1 - 125 / 6,309) x 100% = 98.0187%." It should be noted that this figure is well below the accuracy level of 99.999% specified in the Terms of Reference and its contract with Comelec.

Moreover, Dr. Muga adds, that method of calculating "match" is actually "misleading." He says, "The PCOS Count differed in 50 of the 55 senatorial candidates. Hence, the percentage of match between the PCOS count and the manual count for all of the senatorial candidates is a measly 9.0909%." That’s nine percent.

In the "presidential" count, Smartmatic reported a "Percentage of Match between Manual and Electronic Count [of] 99.99280%," basing this on a net difference of 6 between the total presidential votes of 833 counted by the PCOS machine and the total presidential votes of 827 counted in the manual verification. The figure is derived from (1 - 6 / 833) x 100% = 99.99280%. Again, this is wrong. In the actual results, it must be the absolute differences -- not the net differences (positive discrepancies shouldn’t cancel out negative discrepancies) -- in the count for each candidate that determines accuracy. Dr. Muga says, "If we sum up the absolute difference between the manual count and the PCOS count for each of the presidential candidates, we shall obtain 52. Hence, the accuracy of the PCOS Count compared to the manual count is (1 - 52 / 827) x 100% = 93.7172213%." Again, this is way below the required 99.999%.

Additionally, Dr. Muga adds, "It [that figure] does not explain why the PCOS Count differs from the manual count in 33 out of 55 presidential candidates. Thus, the actual percentage of match between the manual and the PCOS count for all of the presidential candidates is only 40%."

To mislead appears to be the actual intention of the Smartmatic report. In other words, this has to be a deliberate deception.

It should be stressed that the miserable performance of the Smartmatic machine occurred in what, by any definition, was merely a simple marketing demo under ideal conditions, not a real product test. If their carefully chosen machine cannot meet specifications under ideal conditions, how can their run-of-the-mill machines meet these under actual (and non-ideal) field conditions?

A real product test would consist of a full-blown hardware and software evaluation by technical experts in computer performance and system security. The multi-sector citizens’ election monitoring group AES Watch, in several letters to the Commission on Elections, asked that Comelec "allow Filipino IT computer security experts to do end-to-end and top-bottom TESTING of the PCOS system" and not let Smartmatic get away with "mere marketing demos of their product." AES Watch complains that Chairman Brillantes is doing nothing about this request. They say that "instead of creating a committee which would allow the full participation of the Filipino IT community in the testing of the system for fraud, the Comelec is creating a ‘grievance committee’ and nothing else." They consider this "a big insult to the intelligence of the Filipino IT practitioner and election watchdogs."

AES watch correctly points out that Mr. Brillantes’s new grievance committee is only a poorer version of the Comelec Advisory Committee of technical experts whose recommendation not to purchase the flawed Smartmatic system Mr. Brillantes and his fellow commissioners have already pointedly ignored.

So why does Chairman Brillantes and his complicit fellow commissioners continue to resist the idea of a comprehensive product test of the Smartmatic automated election system? With the clear failure of the Smartmatic machines "demo-ed" last July 24-25 to perform as per required specifications, plus the subsequent fudging of figures in the August 3 report on the demo, this refusal takes on a sinister meaning.

One leading industry practitioner laments, "It’s obvious that Comelec is just stonewalling and unwilling to let the Filipino IT community be involved. Comelec is not being transparent. Also, in the way it justified its decision upholding the legality of Comelec’s purchase of the Smartmatic PCOS machines, it seems that the Supreme Court was even lawyering for Comelec. It’s disgusting, frustrating, infuriating. I don’t know how we can continue to stomach this nonsense." The Filipino people should be disgusted, frustrated, and infuriated as well.

A matter of fairness

Philippine Catholic Bishops’ Statement on End of Debates of Reproductive Health Bill
"The Catholic Church and Those Who Are Similarly Minded Ask for Nothing More Than Fairness"

MANILA, Philippines, AUG. 14, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Here is the statement from the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines on recent act by Congress to end debates for the proposed Reproductive Health Bill.

* * *

A Matter of Fairness

CBCP Statement on the recent voting in the House of Representatives ending the debates on the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill

It was not supposed to happen. The agreement was to vote on August 7, 2012, when every side would have been ready and prepared to defend its cause as in any democratic setting.

Unfortunately, in a move remarkable in its stealth and swiftness, the ruling group of the House of Representatives, on August 6, 2012, managed to force a vote that terminated the period of debates on the RH Bill. It came a full day too soon, just when “no one was looking”. Except for the cabal of schemers, people were caught off-guard by the suddenness of the execution, especially those who oppose the Bill on faith or principle.

We are dismayed by the display of naked power. We lament the unilateral disregard of prior agreement in the pursuit of selfish goals. We detest the unbridled resort to foul tactics. We denounce the brazen disregard of the basic tenets of fair play and attempt to railroad the passage of the Bill. Not least, we question the surrender of legislative discretion to an intrusive President, reminiscent of the events leading to the impeachment proceedings.

The Catholic Church and those who are similarly minded ask for nothing more than fairness. After all, we have as much right to expose the dangers and ills of the Bill as those who promote it. So much is at stake in this fight for life: protection of women’s health against harmful contraceptives; preservation of parental authority over minor children; protection of the youth against valueless sex education; wrongful discrimination of the poor; wasteful disbursement of billions of pesos for contraceptives while many of the poor die of cancer, tuberculosis, dengue and other ailments without the benefit of medicine; suppression of dissent and civil liberties through threatened imprisonment and gradual annihilation of the Philippine race through systematic reduction of maternal fertility rate.

In the face of a well-funded campaign to have the RH Bill passed as envisioned by foreign institutions, and despite the undeserved attacks it is reaping, the Catholic Church stands firm in its resolve to fight this deadly measure at every turn and no matter the cost ― all for love of God, flock, and country.

We commend the bravery and dedication of legislators who continue to resist the Bill even at the risk of retaliation from the powers-that-be. To them go our blessing and the gratitude of the faithful. Their courageous and patriotic acts will be remembered long after the last debate had been waged and the final vote had been cast.

Finally, we urge all devoted Catholics to unite against the Bill. Intensify your prayers and let your voices be heard and your actions seen against this deadly measure. Truth is on our side. Developed countries with dwindling population are beginning to realize the folly of population control, and some, like Singapore, regret having adopted it. Most importantly, the Bill’s anti-life features go against our Constitution, our treasured traditions and the basic teachings of the Catholic Church as enunciated years ago by Pope Paul VI and Blessed John Paul II.

For and in behalf of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines,
+ JOSE S. PALMA, D.D.
Archbishop of Cebu & President, CBCP
13 August 2012

Black Box Voting - America's Elections Watchdog Group

Black Box Voting - America's Elections Watchdog Group

Why Ireland scrapped their voting machines

Did Mr. Carpio and The Firm help create the ‘corrupt judiciary’?

The Manila Times.Net
Editorials
24 July 2012


“Hoodlums in robes” was what we called the magistrates some years ago. That was because atrocious decisions and news about malfeasant judges had become the talk of the town day in and day out.

Unfortunately, the perception that ours is a corrupt judiciary makes most of our citizenry forget that many judges are persons of unassailable integrity devoted to their difficult job. Some judges do heroically uphold the highest principles. For letting justice win in their courtrooms, a number of judges have been murdered. They should be honored as martyrs. Sadly, their martyrdom has done little to reverse the image of the Philippine judiciary as a corrupt institution.

All of these goings on served to flush down the reputation of the Philippine courts into the dark caverns of a septic tank.

Not just a grave image problem

For the truth is that the judiciary not only has a grave image problem. It really has serious moral shortcomings. Not only have the Supreme Court’s probers themselves found some judges to be corrupt, incompetent, lazy and irresponsible. Conversations with lawyers of great probity as well as those of low ethical constitution also reveal that some justices and judges can be bought outright or be approached politely and induced to yield.

That is why the Judicial and Bar Council must do its duty more rigorously than ever before. The JBC must find the most virtuous among the most qualified of the applicants for chief justice.

The new chief justice must not only be a man (or woman) of integrity guided by the highest sense of morality and patriotism. He or she must also be an inspiring figure and a decisive chief executive officer who has the personal skills to reform the entire Philippine judiciary and rid it of scalawag justices, judges and clerks.

Anyone who has been a protagonist in destructive partisan politics and a contributor to creating the sorry state of the judiciary today must be screened out at once.

Any aspirant who has benefited from corruption, bent the laws to promote his or his group’s interests, abused his power to attain his desired goal must be cast aside.

And this brings us to the crucial need to examine the life and career of the present Acting Chief Justice, the honorable Antonio T. Carpio.

He seems to be the frontrunner. But, more than any other applicant, Acting CJ Carpio appears to have contributed the most to creating the dire state of our judiciary.

The key premise is this: That the present judiciary is corrupt—and even criminal—as seen in actions committed, in court decisions made, by corrupt magistrates.

That being so, who peopled the judiciary with hoodlums in robes?

For one reason or another, some lawyers say that these past two decades Justice Antonio Carpio and some of his colleagues in the law firm he founded, CVC Law, have been among the most influential in shaping the corrupt state of the judiciary.

CVC Law is reputedly the most powerful law firm in our country. Now also known as Villaraza Cruz Marcelo & Angangco, this group of legal eagles is fearsomely nicknamed “The Firm.”

The first C in CVCLaw stands for “Carpio.” The V stands for Atty. F. Arthur Villaraza. The second C, for Atty. Avelino Cruz.

What role did Acting Chief Justice Carpio—and his colleagues in The Firm—play in the appointment of their chosen nominees to the judiciary?

Did Acting CJ Carpio have a hand in these appointments as early as 1992 when he was the chief presidential legal counsel of then president Fidel V. Ramos? Is it true that in that capacity he required all prospective appointees to the judiciary to secure his approval? Did he also direct these prospective appointees to go to the CVC Law office to be interviewed by and obtain the approval of CVC Law name partners?

Did Mr. Carpio and his colleagues in The Firm play a role in the ouster of former president Joseph Estrada? Were he and his colleagues the brains that made it possible for then vice-president Gloria M. Arroyo to become president and replace the ousted president Estrada?

Did Acting CJ Carpio and his colleagues in The Firm influence the CJ Hilario Davide Supreme Court’s interpretation of former president Joseph Estrada’s actions as his “constructive resignation” from the presidency, thus justifying the accession of then vice-president Gloria Arroyo to the presidency?

After working for then president Fidel V. Ramos, did Acting CJ Carpio return to The Firm? Was The Firm’s office at the LTA building in Makati? Was the office of former First Gentleman Juan Miguel Arroyo also in the same building? Was the former first gentleman, a client of The Firm?

Not long after Mrs. Arroyo became president, she appointed Mr. Carpio associate justice of the Supreme Court. Did he continue to have professional contacts with his colleagues in The Firm even after assuming office as SC justice?

Did he— and his colleagues in The Firm, who had become leading members of the Arroyo Cabinet— have a hand in the appointment of judges and justices by then president Arroyo? Did The Firm’s Mr. Avelino Cruz, as president Arroyo’s presidential legal counsel, sometime acting executive secretary and finally secretary of defense, vet nominees for positions in the judiciary? Did The Firm’s Mr. Simeon Marcelo also? Did Mr. Carpio participate in this vetting process—even when he was already a

Supreme Court justice?

Did Mr. Carpio also meet and have conversations with nominees to the judiciary, whose inclusion in short lists were not owed to The Firm, to make them feel beholden to The Firm for their appointment?

There were at least 15 lawyers of The Firm who held top positions in the Arroyo administration. All except one of them returned to The Firm upon resigning from the government, following the example set by Mr. Carpio, former Defense secretary Cruz and former Solicitor General (later former Ombudsman) Simeon Marcelo.

Did The Firm, through all its people in key government positions, help shape not just the corrupt judiciary but also the questionable policy-making and governance of key government agencies of the previous administration?

Did Acting CJ Carpio and The Firm cause the termination of the services of the executive director of the Supreme Court’s Information Technology (IT) program? Did Justice Carpio subsequently cause the hiring of an IT expert recommended by CVCLaw?

Is it true that this new IT expert provided CVC Law access to advance information on forthcoming resolutions and decisions of the High Court? Is it true that by reason of this advance information, CVC Law gained undue advantage and profited financially? Was the connection between CVC Law and the SC IT expert ever disclosed to the other justices of the Court?

Questions that involve moral torpitude

Some questions we have been urged to ask—by persons opposed to Mr. Carpio’s appointment— involve suggestions of moral torpitude.

One asks if it is true that Mr. Carpio had a relationship with a female clerk in a law firm other than CVC Law and got her pregnant. Did he recognize the child and provide full support for its upbringing and education?

Another has to do with the much-publicized objection of Lauro Visconte to Mr. Carpio’s appointment. Is it true that Mr. Carpio testified as a witness in favor of Hubert Webb and lobbied with fellow justices for the acquittal of Hubert Webb? Did Mr. Carpio have a relationship with a relative of Hubert Webb?

Our wish is both to give Acting Justice Carpio the opportunity through our pages to show that all the negative perceptions of him and The Firm are not true and to help the Judicial Bar Council find the best nominees among the applicants.

http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/opinion/editorials/27544-did-mr-carpio-and-the-firm-help-create-the-corrupt-judiciary

That May 2010 election monster, the PCOS machine, re-surfaces for 2013 elections

That May 2010 election monster, the PCOS machine, re-surfaces for 2013 elections, after Comelec resuscitates ‘dead contract’ to purchase 82,000 units from Smartmatic at P1.8 billion. Recalling ‘Koala Boy’ and frightening pattern of wholesale defeats in 2010. Civic groups led by Archbishop Capalla and IT experts file MR against SC’s 11-3 decision upholding that contract---suntok sa buwan?

POLITICAL TIDBITS

Belinda Olivares-Cunanan

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Soon after the May 10, 2012 presidential and local elections, the House committee on suffrage and electoral reforms, chaired by former Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr., began a month-long inquiry into that exercise, during which dozens of candidates from around the country who had lost testified. As a veteran political observer of 25 years, who was then connected with a major newspaper, I covered those hearings of TeddyBoy’s committee day in and day out, in view of their historic significance as our first fully-automated elections. I reported on them in great detail in my columns.

At first I thought the House committee hearings represented just another of those traditional ho-hum inquiries where Pinoy candidates didn’t lose but instead were "cheated" of victory. But when so many candidates began to exhibit a frightening pattern of wholesale defeats, most of them studiously backed up by elaborate evidence of electoral failings never before seen here, I began to take a serious look at a new election monster---the PCOS machines of Smartmatic-TIM (SMTT).

After their defects and glitches surfaced dizzyingly in so many places, they came to be known as “Hocus PCOS” (trust former President Estrada to coin that term).

XXX

Soon enough political pundits began to wonder: just how high did the manipulation of the May 2010 elections go?  There was clamor from some quarters afterwards for an independent commission to investigate the shenanigans in those elections, but this was ignored. Will we ever find out the truth?

Unfortunately, today, as Comelec prepares for the mid-term elections of 2013, the PCOS machines have been resurrected---despite the fact that the poll body’s option to purchase (OTP) them from SMTT had expired last December 31, 2010.  Comelec entered into this new contract that SMTT was only too willing to “extend” last March 2012 for P1.8 billion---this time to buy those 82,000 PCOS machines that have been in storage for the past two years, with many proven defective in the 2010 elections.

Several citizens’ organizations led by Davao Archbishop Fernando Capalla and former Vice President Tito Guingona, as well as the Solidarity for Sovereignty and Tanggulang Demokrasya, seek to stop this OTP because it’s a “dead option contract.” that had expired in December 2010. The protesters rightly claim that a new contract should involve new public bidding, as the law requires, but this was not done.

Obviously, to push selling its old PCOS stock, SMTT claims that the allegations of its defects---totaling 236 as asserted by ousted Comelec Commissioner Gus Lagman, the only IT expert among the poll body’s seven top officials---are being addressed by its Cabuyao, Laguna HQ. IT experts, however, are plainly skeptical about this claim.

XXX

In fact, SMTT claims that it’s testing some 3,500 PCOS units a day---which includes the power source, the CF card ports, thermal printer, scanning capacity, UV sensors and modem transmissions. But the IT experts who have long been scrutinizing the PCOS’ performance, laugh off this fat claim as mission impossible.

IT expert Lito Averia opines that even assuming that it takes one hour to check one PCOS unit (including unpacking and re-packing), SMTT has to have  some 450 technicians/testers hired for this purpose---not the handful at Cabuyao that media have seen. But even granting na nga, says Averia, that checking each unit takes just half an hour, 225 technicians/testers are still needed per day.

The IT people assert that this SMTT claim has to be a joke. “Kung visual inspection lang, pwede pa matapos ng ganoon, but not an honest to goodness check-up of machines that had malfunctioned in 2010 and kept in storage for two years,” they stress.

To quote Rep. Rudy Farinas, it’s an SMTT PALUSOT and it’s sad that Comelec is buying this story lock, stock and barrel.

XXX

What’s even sadder are the developments at the Supreme Court. Early in May this year, the SC, led by then Chief Justice Renato Corona, issued a TRO through a vote of 8 vs. 7 against the Comelec-SMTT  PCOS purchase contract inked last March, in order to hear arguments on both sides. But on June 13, 2012---exactly 15 days after CJ Corona was ousted by the Senate---the SC reversed itself in a vote of 11-3 and upheld the purchase contract (four justices moved from AGAINST to PRO-contract after Corona was sacked. This is regarded as immediate proof of his impeachment’s chilling effect on the Court.

Yesterday the consolidated IT organization called Automated Election System Watch (AESW) filed a motion for reconsideration of that SC decision upholding the contract. It’s a suntok sa buwan by the AESW, for the magistrates’ pro-contract vote is massive.  BUT IT’S A BLOW FOR DEMOCRACY.

XXX

Soon after the May 2010 elections, stunning cases of massive defeats were disclosed simultaneous with the surfacing in media of a mysterious masked character nicknamed “Koala Boy” by TeddyBoy Locsin. Koala Boy alleged he was part of a big group of “players,” “operators” and “coordinators” as well as their allies in the Comelec that manipulated the national and local elections to favor candidates who paid their steep fees.

Koala Boy asserted that the “simple” operations (“pindot-pindot lang”),  made through the PCOS machines, involved three steps:  l). the switching of ballots in the PCOS machines, using ballots outside of the Comelec stock;  2). the pre-programming the CF cards (recall that the CF cards were discovered to be “defected” and supposed to have been “corrected” the weekend before the elections, but apparently never were in many places); and 3). The transmission of spurious returns bearing duplicate serial numbers from the syndicates’ own PCOS machines---capable of transmitting from 24,000 to 30,000 ballots in one instance.

XXX

Koala Boy said he surfaced because he was conscience-stricken, but he never showed up after one appearance, doubtless for fear of his life. There was skepticism---and even cynicism---in some quarters about his incredible allegations, but the coincidental stories of massive defeats of power blocs in various regions were just too stunning and numerous to ignore.

For instance, former Rep. Ace Barbers of Surigao del Norte, then running for governor, lost with his entire line-up that included his vice-gubernatorial candidate, two candidates for representative and all his 21 mayors.  Ace could really have lost, but all the 21 mayors? There was the three-term popular governor of North Cotabato, Manny Piñol, at that time running for Vice-Governor, who also lost wholesale with his local candidates. There were also re-electionist Rep. Glenn Chiong, vice-mayoralty candidate of Tagaytay Mark Tan, and many other cases of candidates who seemed to have been  “deleted” in the computers.

XXX

Other cases of high improbability last May 2010:  Cebu Gov. Gwen Garcia of the powerful Garcia clan lost in her own barangay in Carcar as well as in Mandaue City where she asserted that the first time she ran there in 2007 she won by 45,000 (she lost last May 2010 in Mandaue by 15,000 there even with Rep. Nerisa Soon's and her opponent's support).  Former President Estrada, then a presidential candidate, lost in his own precinct in San Juan.

Former Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita lost in his own bailiwick even as all his mayors won; both former Secretary Raul Gonzalez and his reelectionist son, Rep. Raul Jr., lost in their own bailiwick in Iloilo. Former Manila Mayor Lito Atienza, on the other hand, recounted a story from a witness who claimed she saw the feeding of fake ballots right in City Hall.

For comments/reactions, please email: polbits@yahoo.com