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There will be no “Robert Mugabe” with the automation of the
August 11 election at the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM),
Sen. Richard Gordon said.
He was referring to the dictator of Zimbabwe who
succeeded in preventing the announcement of the presidential
elections conducted more than one month ago.
“The results of the ARMM election will be
known in an hour or two. There will be no time to tamper with the
results with the speed of voting, counting and transmission,” he
said.
Smartsmatic, ABS Chatsworth Data Corp., Avante
International Technology and Botong Pinoy demonstrated two different
technologies before officials of the Commission on Elections and the
Joint Congressional Oversight on Automated Election System jointly
headed by Gordon and Makati City Rep. Teddyboy Locsin.
“There will be a paradigm shift in voting. The
demonstration debunked previous beliefs that Filipinos cannot use
technology in voting,” Gordon said.
He said there should be no problem in educating
voters on how to use the machines, since all they have to do is
touch with their finger the names or faces of candidates shown on a
screen. Another technology would require voters to black out a space
of their chosen candidate.
Comelec Chairman Jose Melo said the poll body
would determine if they could also automate the election in
Tawi-Tawi and Sulu, both island-provinces, because their earlier
understanding was that only the contiguous provinces of Basilan,
Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and Sharif Kabunsuan would be covered by
automation.
Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Edgardo Angara
both suggested that only the four provinces be automated and that
manual elections be conducted in Tawi-Tawi and Sulu, because of the
difficulties of getting electricity and of covering all the
different islands comprising the two provinces.
Rep. Nur Jaafar of Tawi-Tawi had delivered a
privileged speech denouncing the omission of his province in the
proposed automation by Gordon and Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de
Oro City.
Rodriguez said it is up to the Comelec to decide
and noted the technologies shown to the oversight committee could
work even without electricity for up to 16 hours.
Alfred Padlan of Botong Pinoy said they are
willing to automate the elections in Tawi-Tawi and Sulu.
Melo said the Comelec would not award the
contract for automation to only one company. He said that the
awarding would be done next week to give them enough lead-time for
the full automation of the ARMM election.
-- Efren L. Danao
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