Scenario: Failure of elections
On May 10, an historic political exercise will pick the next Philippine president via the first computerized automated election.
Hopefully, this will do away with the primitive manual counting of ballots that take days. Weeks or even months before any results are known, a tortuous process that has led to widespread cheating, violence like ballot-box grabbing, killings between elections rivals…a political phenomenon endemic to the Philippines.
Like in most developed countries like Canada and the US, using the same technology the tally results and the winners are quickly known in a matter of only hours, the latest perhaps, and a day after.
As D-day nears, proponents of the new election technology are faced with few important questions and factors: Will it work, will there be no snags or will the computer and the transmittal process function smoothly?
But the bigger question is: Will there be adequate power supply to make the system running? Or will natural forces like the weather abnormality of El Nino spoil its debut.
For weeks now, many parts of the Philippines are reeling from the effects of El Nino, triggering heat waves, drying up sources of water specially those for agriculture and lowering water levels at dams and other infrastructures that generate electricity and power sources.
The result: power shortage, brownouts and worse, blackouts lasting from 6 to 12 hours in many places.
The government’s secretary of Energy Angelo Reyes has even predicted that the current power crisis, which already necessitated the declaration of a state of calamity in Mindanao, could adversely result in massive blackouts in the region and affect the forthcoming May 10 elections. Without power or electricity, computers cannot function and therefore, votes cannot be cast or counted, tabulated and transmitted.
The scenario painted by Reyes therefore raises the spectre of a failure of elections in that crucial area where the winners are determined from its
high percentage votes.
Opposition leaders recalled that it was in Mindanao where poll anomalies
were allegedly reported that favored the Arroyo candidates including her.
In the 2004 and 2007 elections, massive blackouts occurred in many areas of Mindanao while votes were being tallied and the results tilted for administration candidates.
Will El Nino be the convenient excuse for the country’s first ever computerized automated elections to fail and commit fraud?
Will El Nino be the reason that outgoing President Arroyo will become a holdover president in the event of a failure of elections?
The question is: does the COMELEC has a back-up plan in this kind of
eventuality?
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OF GLASS AND RUBBER BALLS: New Toronto Philippine Consul General Minerva Jean Falcon said her priorities for Filipinos in her new postings will be determined by “glass and rubber balls “ meaning she will address issues and concerns that first requires immediate attention and importance.
Ms. Falcon replaced Congen Alejandro Mosquera who was reassigned to the foreign affairs legal department.
Fielding questions in her first appearance before the monthly breakfast forum of the Philippine Press Club of Ontario (PPCO) at Quiapo, Quiapo restaurant, Falcon, who is also a lawyer and a 35-year veteran diplomat, declared her mandate dictates that the consul general should take care of the people. She declared “Kailangan alagaan ang mga Pilipino“ when you are a consul general.
Specifically, she said the difference between an embassy and a consulate general is that the former takes care of relationship between two countries, in this case the Philippines and Canada while a consulate general addresses the needs and welfare of overseas Filipinos.
She considers the caregivers and other OFW’s issues as one of her “Glass balls “: that needs to be taken care of immediately.
Falcon said the bottom line of her job is “to keep or continue the patriotic fire burning “ among Filipinos.
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PEOPLE,PLACES EVENTS: Comments heard during the PPCO’s first Kapihan for the year 2010 featuring the new Congen Minerva Falcon.
“She’s (Falcon) downright down-to earth , diplomatically savvy and straightforward “.
“Cowboy ang dating, pati lingo niya, makamasa at pang-barkada, very easily understood”.
“ That’s the true diplomat, cool, patient, a good listener who’s sincere “ referring to Ms. Falcon’s reaction to a litany of complaints posted by Philippine Courier’s Mon “Moron“: Datol against an attached consulate official .
“ Somebody should learn the finer points and rudiments of diplomacy in dealing with people “ .
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COOL-JEN: You READ it first here in BALITA. Chito Collantes is set to get hitched. Yes, he is getting married. Chito made this announcement at his birthday celebration last March 7 at the Cusina lounge. Collantes is a long-time community leader and a Knights of Rizal proponent and advocate.
The chick: singer Jennifer Camacho, that livewire performer who Chito has been dating for the past years.
Their bittersweet relationship, punctuated by tumultuous episodes, according to Chito has “endured “ and has therefore come to a blissful climax…a permanent relationship. The COOL-JEN (from the first letter of Chito’s surname and the first name of Jennifer) union, could perhaps be the wedding of the community, this year?
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OLD BUDDIES: Welcome to my colleague Romy Marquez, San Diego-based veteran journalist to Toronto. Mr. Marquez runs a news service called Village Voice, a community oriented news organization catering to Filipino expats. Together with North Cotabato governor. Manny Pinol (formerly with Phil. News Agency). Marquez and this writer composed the core of the so-called “Yakuza press“ in the early 1980s, so-called because most of its members were either stringers or correspondents of Japanese newspapers, wires services such as the Asahi Shimbun, Nihon Denpa News, Fiji Press and NHK.
KAPUSO MO, NATIN: Welcome also to another colleague Jessica Soho of the popular TV magazine show “Kapuso Mo ,Jessica Soho“ who’s arriving on March 22, to do a special on Filipinos in Canada and to cover the forthcoming (March 27) Ana Julaton fight at the casino Rama against Ms. Brown.
Jessica, along with PPCO member Nestor Arellano and I are veteran “Coup-respondents“(to use a term by Gen. Honesto Isleta) covering the defence and military establishments during President Cory Aquino’s term.
A series of military uprisings or “coup d’ etats “marked that era.
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PROMOTER’s SCAM: A Filipino-Canadian lady manpower executive has filed a case of fraud against a woman promoter whom she alleged gypped her of some $5,500 in exchange for bringing her niece and brother here in Toronto.
This case unravels a very interesting facet on the concert promotions business involving “imported talents“from the Philippines.
Another legal action is poised to be filed by representatives of a well known
“imports“ from Manila involving a Toronto-based promoter for non-payment of talent fees. We’ll keep you posted next issue.