No short cuts

How would one level the playing field with the Aquino administration people actively endorsing their candidate hence loading the bases? The Aquino-endorsed candidate has the bureaucracy as machinery, taxpayers’ money for war chest and the Comelec as “panigurado”? Why do I say this? Two Arroyo appointees (Tagle and Yusof) in the Comelec will be ending their terms on February 2015, together with Chairman Sixto Brillantes. That leaves the Comelec with 4 Commissioners (Lim, Parreno, De Guia and Lim) as it prepares for the 2016 elections. All the four are appointees of Aquino. If BSA3 fills up the vacancies and the Commission on Appointments confirms the 3 plus Lim, we will have a Comelec appointed by an outgoing administration actively campaigning for its successor. In this country of ours, who controls the Comelec controls the outcomes of the elections.

The Comelec en banc has decided to reuse the PCOS machines and a secondary Optical Mark Reader (OMR) technology for the 2016 presidential polls. It seems that automation is more of hardware-centric than app-focused. Comelec is planning to purchase about 40,000 units of the secondary OMR technology in addition to the 80,000 PCOS units that they purchased for the previous election. Comelec is also looking to pilot-test the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) machines (touch screen) and the Internet voting system (for absentee voting) in the upcoming polls.