Your leader or mine? Disastrous PCOS, people

MANILA - The PCOS mocked the people during the mock election in some places in Metro Manila and Mindoro Province last Monday: They didn't count the votes (Leo Reyes, 04 May, Digital Journal). The PCOS (pronounced pecos) are the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines, and they failed to read some votes, like those for Jett Reyes (Taguig City), or they printed incorrect results, as reported by Pateros Mayor Joey Medina - based on the parallel manual count. As I write this, there is hardly a week before Election Day on Monday, 10 May 2010 - is there a danger that the PCOS can be disastrous to the election process?

Smartmatic, the company that supplies the software and the hardware for the automated polls, explained that the errors were caused by defective memory cards. Really? I know a flash drive is a memory card, a storage device for digital files; it's called a card because it is thin. A memory stick is a memory card; the card in your mobile phone or digital camera is a memory card. A "defective" memory card can mean a bad sector or bad configuration (faulty formatting). It can also mean low product quality of the card itself. What exactly did Smartmatic mean by "defective" it didn't say.

The incomplete and/or incorrect results printed can be the effect of a technical glitch (a bug in the software, or an error in programming), or a mechanical glitch. Since not all of the PCOS machines reported incorrect data, and since it was the same software used in all polling places, that means that the source of error is not the software but the hardware. It could have really been defective memory cards.

The glitch was discovered Monday, 03 May; Smartmatic promised to replace the defective cards by Thursday, 06 May, the day I am writing this. The replacing is easy - I can imagine that all you have to do is: Open case, yank out card, insert replacement, close case - all in 5 minutes. Case closed. (Update: 07 May, as I finalize this, "Poll machines pass 2nd round of tests" - Mayen Jaymalin, philstar.com).

What about cheating in the counting of the votes (not to mention the ballots)? That's history now. Says Ana Singson, who is Media Director of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, an independent body (they have a website: ppcrv.org), when you insert your ballot into the machine, the PCOS will scan it and take a photo of the front and back of the ballot; the images are then stored in the memory card (Charley Braga, Yahoo News). Now there are 2 copies of your ballot: original and digital.

Right after the voting, backup copies of the vote data will be sent to 5 different servers, those of the: (1) municipal canvassers, (2) Comelec central office, (3) Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas (KBP), (4) accredited citizen arm, and (5) secure public server of Comelec - a redundancy of 1 original, 1 digital copy, and 5 backup digital copies (Reynaldo Santos Jr, 06 January 2010, Newsbreak). You have to cheat in 7 different places at 7 different times to cheat 1 time. Impossible.

So I don't expect disastrous results in the first-ever automated elections in the Philippines. But there could be disastrous selections.

I'm very worried about the presidential selection. I'm looking at a disastrous presidency if:

(1) The presidential candidate has no Vision for the country, a desired future common to all. Without Vision, the people (us) will perish.

(2) The presidential candidate has no clear, concise, coherent, comprehensive platform of government. This would have been his stated Mission, but there cannot be a Mission to fulfill the Vision that is not there.

(3) The presidential candidate has no action agenda except to fight corruption. Corruption is not the biggest problem of the country. Not poverty either. It's a complex of many problems. If the presidential candidate doesn't know that, it's too late to change him.

(4) The presidential candidate cannot explain the complex issues: culture, language, US relations, opportunities, Muslims, terrorism, constitutional amendment, Asean etc.

(5) The presidential candidate loves mudslinging. He's a spoiled brat who never grew up. He loves making people miserable - and we will be.

(6) The presidential candidate is not cool under fire. Being President is neither for cowards nor trigger-happy people. He has not weathered a political storm or familial storm and doesn't know how to come up with a win-win solution.

(7) The presidential candidate is not decisive. The President is a manager - he manages the affairs of the whole country. A bad manager doesn't take risks and doesn't call the shots until all data are in. He is afraid of making a mistake.

(8) The presidential candidate is not a good negotiator. The President has to deal with groups with conflicting interests. Your candidate has yet to thresh out a difficult win-win situation with any group within the country.

(9) The presidential candidate is not a good listener. Your candidate cannot accept new ideas if he doesn't listen to others and listens only to himself. A closed mind cannot be creative and cannot come up with new ideas. Your candidate cannot answer the call of the times: for innovations (plural).

(10) The presidential candidate has no clear sense of nationhood. If your candidate does not recognize the diverse cultures of the Filipinos, if he insists on an imposed national language, if he cannot see the crucial role of communication in an archipelago, then he will simply encourage more factions and frictions, with no end in sight. The Philippines will remain a place of disasters geographically and culturally. It will remain a fractured culture.

Now that I know the presidential candidate I should avoid voting for, it stands to reason that now I can recognize the presidential candidate I should support. And based on the information I have gathered and the insights gained, my selection is Gilberto "Gibo" Teodoro.

Now then, let's see how good is Gibo as a presidential choice from his answers to difficult questions. I am now going to make excerpts from the lengthy interview with him by Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Literature F Sionil Jose ("Gilbert Teodoro: Light at the end of the tunnel" (10 January 2010, philstar.com).

Jose: "What does a rich boy know about poverty?"
Gibo: A doctor doesn't have to be leprous to treat leprosy.

Jose: "What does money, which is power, mean to you?"
Gibo: "True, money is a route to power. But it is also a shield against the improper influences of power. It provides a degree of independence. Thus I am thankful to have been provided for by my family."

Jose: "How will you convince our people that your high office will benefit the people and not your family?"
Gibo: "The strongest way to convince people that one´s family will not be unduly favored is through one´s platforms, policies, and actions."

Jose: "I presume you understand why it is necessary for this country to have a strong leader and, therefore, a strong state."

Gibo: "I believe the country, more important than needing a strong leader, needs strong leadership. This is the difference between what I perceive to be contemporary viewpoints, the failure to distinguish between the person and the institution. Oftentimes, strong leadership is built around an individual and stays that way, while I believe in creating lasting institutions with the clear position that my participation will be temporary."

Jose: "Poverty is our foremost problem. How will you resolve it in six years?"
Gibo: "One cannot resolve poverty. One can only set the stage for people to get out of it. If a government has for its primary purpose the resolution of poverty, solely or principally through government intervention, then it will be taking on a burden which is not fully its own, thereby creating a moral hazard. In the final analysis, only the individual can free himself or herself from poverty. A government can only create the basic conditions that will provide a favorable atmosphere to alleviate poverty."

Jose: "What is your view on foreign investment?"
Gibo: "My goal is to make the Philippines a favorable platform for investments both domestic and foreign, with some conditions, for example protection of workers´ rights, of the environment, of our farmers. The goal is to provide proper government investments, such as infrastructure, and policies such as transparency, to afford confidence in our economy and in our people — basic education reform. Thomas Friedman recently wrote an article entitled "Innovate, innovate, innovate," where he says it is once again the age of innovation. A country to get ahead must innovate and invent something new that the world does not have and that it will need."

Jose: "Your program on health and education will require a vast outlay of resources. You need to increase revenues. Will you finally, really tax the very rich?"
Gibo: "Tax reform both on the policy level and the administration level is extremely important. One must be able to balance between those two goals. I favor strict enforcement balanced by simplified taxation systems and perhaps some easing of tax rates. Our corporate tax rates are one of the highest in ASEAN. We have to study how we can make up the shortfall enforcement while easing tax rates to attract investments."

Jose: "What are your ideas on population control?"
Gibo: "1. There must be institutional responsibility and accountability. If government is not the proper agency to deal with the problem because it is a moral issue, then our moral guardians must take the responsibility and the consequent accountability for positive results, and not merely for information and education. 2. Government must support the choice freely made by a couple. 3. No to abortion."

Jose: "You are in favor of changing the Constitution. What are the main provisions that you want changed by a constitutional convention or a constituent assembly?"
Gibo: "We must ingrain into our people´s mindset that our political system must evolve with the times. It must effectively address the operational environment. … I am in favor of a freely elected constitutional convention that will have no other mandate but to study and to consider the subject."

Jose: "Our relationship with the United States is the cornerstone of our security policy. What are your thoughts on this relationship? Should the Visiting Forces Agreement be renegotiated?"
Gibo: "It is a paradox that one of the most effective deterrents against conflict between states is close interaction between their armed forces—soldiers do not make wars, politicians do. The VFA is such a mechanism. Recently we have seen it at work in the non-traditional military sense, in what we call HADR—humanitarian assistance and disaster response. In typhoon Frank last year and in Ondoy, Pepeng etc. this year US troops immediately came to our assistance. Thus the VFA should be judged from a broader perspective than just criminal jurisdiction."

Jose: "Some two decades ago, James Fallows of the Atlantic Monthly postulated that our 'damaged culture' hinders our development. If culture both as anthropological and aesthetic concept is a factor in the building of a nation, how will you handle it?"
Gibo: "I believe that the effort to disregard the rich cultural diversity of our country led to a lot of damage. The single language, single ideology line of nation-building has not been a positive development for our country. It has bred bigotry and division. … We are an archipelago, for heaven´s sake. We must encourage that diversity and teach each other what we are, so that a culture of tolerance and respect evolves. Even the contributions of our colonizers such as languages, both Spanish and English, must be appreciated and their use enhanced. The world itself because of increasing interconnections is getting increasingly culturally aware."

Jose: "Among the many insights into the Filipino character, which our history unfailingly illustrates, is that, despite our faults, we are a talented and heroic people with a revolutionary tradition. You are a student of history, what makes a Filipino a hero?"
Gibo: "A hero takes extraordinary steps, with total disregard for personal safety and security, for the benefit of others. Heroism bears the essence of individuality in the context of using it for collective good. Thus the soldier who dies while saving others in a flood, the seven-year-old who saves his younger siblings from an inferno while his parents are away, the schoolteacher who spends her own money to buy food for her students who had to be temporarily housed in the public school because of the flood — they are all heroes."

Jose: "What is your vision for our country?"
Gibo: "I want to see a Philippines that is peaceful, has strong institutions of governance, has modern infrastructure, has food security, is technologically and educationally advanced, with a people who have the capacity to make rational decisions for themselves, true freedom of thought and of expression, a power in Southeast Asia and perhaps the Asia-Pacific, ecologically rich and diverse, in short a country where our people would want to remain."

Jose: "As a three-term Congressman, he saw the real face of poverty, and from this visceral experience, he has come upon ideas about how to alleviate it, not by institutionalizing the solutions but assuring, for instance, that the peasantry should be comfortable through entrepreneurship and by other methods by which farm incomes will rise."

Jose: "The military officers know what he had done in the two years that he was Defense Secretary. … They know, too, that he did not take a single peso from the department coffers, that he protected the integrity of the bidding process."

Jose: "For the cadets at the Academy, he offered academic freedom, but reminded them at the same time of their obligations wherein they were not free. As for the PMA honor code, if in the past, cadets who broke it were given a second chance, he saw to it that there would be no second chance now for those who violate the code."

Jose: "Vicente Paterno, one of the superb technocrats whom Marcos recruited to work for him … said that he knew of only two Arroyo cabinet members who were really honest: Esperanza Cabral of the Department of Social Welfare, and Gilbert."

We are at a fork on the road to history. The road to disaster is to the left, while the road for us to prosper is to the right. For me, Gibo is right.