Our first attendance to the forum was on the discussion about the COMELEC source code and the overpriced PCOS demo centers.
Speakers of the day were Atty. Ferdinand Topacio, Lito Averia of AES Watch and Wenceslao Vinzons Tan of the San Juan Civilian Volunteers.
Here are the articles we submitted:
1. First Article
by Mariejo Mariss Ramos and Jhesset Thrina Enano
A civic organization leader challenges Comelec Spokesperson James Jimenez to step down from office for undermining transparency and integrity of the May 2013 polls.
Wenceslao Tan, chairman of the San Juan Civilian Volunteers, questions the P16-million budget proposed by the commission's Education and Information Department under Jimenez for 23 permanent precinct count optical scan (PCOS) demo centers in the country, saying that the budget lacks justification.
"The Comelec is willing to spend P35,000 a month for rental of one demo center venue. We offered them six locations as permanent demo centers for free, but they refused our help," Tan expressed in an interview.
He also questions the bloated allocation for trainings and seminars, which made the total budget amount to P15,798,850.
While he laments that their initiative was "snubbed" by Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes, Jr., he was more confused as to how Jimenenez's proposal was approved by the chairman in haste.
"The Comelec Spokesperson has no credibility to push for voter's education initiatives like this," Tan expressed, criticizing Jimenez's inability to vote this elections for being delisted.
In a recent interview, Tan also demands the poll body to show proof that the 23 demo centers was set up.
"We are here to help and ensure that the Comelec will be free from any kind of manipulation. If Brillantes cannot take command responsibility over Jimenez, then he, too, should design," Tan concluded.
2. Second Article
by: Jhesset Thrina Enano and Mariejo Ramos
Days away from the 2013 midterm elections, an information technology security expert expressed the lack of transparency of the automated elections amid the delayed release of the source code for the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines.
Lito Averia of Transparent Elections and co-convenor of poll watchdog AES Watch said that the question of credibility "still hangs" after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) only released the human readable code that will run the machines on Tuesday.
"If there is a problem with the program, there is no more way to correct it," said Averia, as the code review can take months to even more than a year to check.
Comelec has been receiving flak for its failure to produce the code to the public, despite being mandated by Section 14 of the Automated Election Law that prompts the commission to make it "available and open to any interested political party or groups" who may do their own review.
'Too late'
The source code contains the set of computer instructions that the PCOS machines would follow in counting and transmitting the total votes for candidates.
Election watchdogs have called on Comelec for their review of the code. Chairman Sixto Brilliantes Jr., however, deflected the comments and instead suggested that the groups assess the 2010 review.
Comelec's resistance prompted United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) senatorial candidate Richard Gordon to file a petition for mandamus with the Supreme Court last Friday to release the 2013 code. Gordon authored the law on poll automation.
For Averia, however, it is already too late.
"We want to have full disclosure of the source code," he said. Moreover, he lamented the "restrictive guidelines" for a possible review, where the poll body will allegedly only release a "read-only copy."
In the 2010 elections, independent watchdogs and groups were prohibited from the code review.
Averia also questioned the supposed modification done by the Comelec, if it were to fix the bugs from the 2010 national and 2011 Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao elections.
He said that only the source code provider, Dominion Voting Systems, has the right to modify the code, in accordance with the license agreement and intellectual property rights.
An ongoing legal battle between Dominion and machine provider Smartmatic also cause delay in the release of the code.
Subject to hacking?
Despite the lack of review, the midterm elections will still push throughy. But the fear still remains: can the systems be hacked?
While a code review can check for possible fraud and manipulation, Averia explained that the transmission of the election returns are more prone to hacking.
He said that a hacker may have a "small window of opportunity" to manipulate the data in the canvassing systems, rather than in the machine itself, contrast to belief that the system is 100 percent fool-proof.
The strongest solution for the public, said Averia, is vigilance.
"We must remain vigilant, especially in the random manual audit," he said.
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