Not so Smartmatic

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

11/19/2012

Daily Tribune

On June 28, 2010, led by Ado Paglinawan and represented by counsel Homobono Adaza, with Myrleon Peralta, Don Emilion de Castro, Patricia Ilagan, we filed GRL case No. 192561 demanding the annulment of the 2010 presidential and local elections. We filed the case on the basis of the massive failure of the Comelec-Smartmatic automated elections system to deliver transparent, efficacious, clean and credible democratic elections. In violation of the Constitution, the Comelec outsourced its powers and functions to a private and foreign corporation with false claims of technical expertise and competence, financial capability and reliability — all of which are now confirmed by a case filed by Smartmatic itself against the principal election automation technology company Dominion Voting Systems International Corp. (DVSI).

The reporters covering our action asked if there was any point to our case as the new president was already to be inaugurated the next day. Adaza explained that we were putting on record with the highest court of the land, the violations of the Constitution and our electoral laws by the Arroyo government, Comelec and Smarmatic: they committed basic misrepresentation of the problem for which we spent P7.2 billion for the PCOS purportedly addressed which the late Mano Alcuaz, an information tech pioneer, incessantly pointed out: that the precinct manual voting and counting was never the problem as they were always finished by the end of election day, it was the verification and security of transmission which a range of simpler and cheaper solutions addressed — such as cellphone snapshots of the canvass board and sheets by watchers and the public to, among others.

There were the countless illegal changes in the PCOS machines safeguard provisions, such as the removal of the built-in ultraviolet ballot verification scanners to ascertain the genuineness of the ballots; the voter's printed vote receipt itemizing the voter's actual votes shaded on the ballot and replaced with a simple print out saying "congratulations" to the voter for successfully voting; the digital signature of the election official on the official election result for the electronic transmission of election results from the precinct to municipal to provincial to national canvassing, and many more enumerated in our 5,000-word petition to the Supreme Court. For two-and-a-half years now the case has languished in that court and the petitioners have heard nothing since. No hearing has been called, no dismissal of the case has been heard of.

Two months ago something happened gave impetus to a revival of our case. In the State of Delaware a court case filed by Smartmatic against DVSI provided confirmation of the problems we and many other critics of the Smartmatic PCOS machines, the Comelec and the conduct of the 2010 elections, had pointed out. Smartmatic and DVSI squabbling over huge business opportunities in the sale of voting machines and election software technologies and services, led Smartmatic to sue election software provider DVSI for withholding from it various software support to operate voting machines it markets for its clients in various countries in past, present and forthcoming elections. Smartmatic is now again exposed, as we many have reported before, to be only a "marketing company" and has no software technology capability contrary to it claims made to the Philippines for the 2010 elections. They are not-so-smart-matics after all.

Smartmatic's general counsel said: "This lawsuit is necessary because of Dominion's persistent refusal to deliver technology that Smartmatic legally licensed. We intend to recover the costs of rectifying a basic Dominion software error that nearly affected the 2010 Philippine elections, which we went to great lengths and expense to correct in keeping with our commitment to maintain the highest standards of election integrity and transparency." "Nearly affected" is a gross understatement. Most startling is Smartmatic's contention that DVSI never provided Smartmatic the "source code" for its voting machines in the 2010 election — contradicting Smartmatic and Comelec's claim in 2010 that they had those source codes in safekeeping. When the AES Watch, a group of Filipino IT experts, sought to test the source code Comelec and Smartmatic insisted in had to be at their warehouses.

The law requires that a source code must be given to the Comelec and deposited with the Bangko Sentral, which apparently never happened. What does this make of the BSP officials, the Comelec, Smartmatic, the congressional officials who were supposed to oversee the entire process? Aren't they now all proven to be liars? It's time a new investigation is called and then Comelec Chairman Melo, as well as all other commissioners then, asked to shed light on these. The final problem now is Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes' P 1.8-billion purchase of the PCOS machines for the 2013 elections which many had warned against. Those machines will be useless without the "source code" DVSI is denying Smartmatic — maybe that's why Brillantes suddenly shifted focus to the party-list disqualifications and the anti-dynasty issues.

(Watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m., and over www.gnntv-asia.com: "Comelec-Smartmatic 2010 Fraud" with Atty. Bono Adaza, Toti Casino and Ado Paglinawan; tune to 1098AM radio Tuesday to Friday 5 to 6 p.m. http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)