Law of Large Numbskulls

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

5/29/2013

Daily Tribune

I don't look into the details of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) election shenanigans anymore, but I'm glad others like the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) Watch, US based Filipino journalist Ado Paglinawan, the Philippine Computer Society and many others are still scrutinizing the minute details of Comelec and Brillantes' transgressions.

I had long concluded that Philippine elections are circuses when they used the Smartmatic-Comelec PCOS or any other electronic or automated system at the precinct level designed to manipulate votes, and when the Philippine Supreme Court continues to protect the Comelec-PCOS shenanigans such as violating the rule of prompt court action by sitting for three years on the petition lawyer Bono Adaza, myself and Ado Paglinawan filed in June of 2010 calling for the nullification of the 2010 Elections on the basis of the Comelec and the election exercise's proven violations of the Automated Election Law.

An ongoing debate rages between a small minority who are still defending the PCOS and a much larger number of the knowledgeable IT experts in the country from the major academic institution, i.e. the UP and the Ateneo, and journalist Ado Paglinawan, who have exposed the statistically unbelievable 60-30-10 apparent template in the "batched" canvassing of the votes from the different provinces. This "batching" of the national canvassing is the first time ever in Philippine election history. In the past the canvassing from the provinces were done and announced as they came in from the field. Why this "batching" was done may be explained in the discussion I will cite below. Suffice it to say that the pattern from the first to the sixteenth batched canvass showed the controversial 60-30-10 pattern and then the canvass flow stopped at around 75 percent of all the canvasses.

No rational explanation was given by the Comelec or Smartmatic for the 60-30-10 anomaly, until a Filipino expat in teaching in the US, Dr. Michael Purugganan of the New York University, dean of science, argued from the point of the Law of Large Numbers (LLN…one of several theorems expressing the idea that as the number of trials of a random process increases, the percentage difference between the expected and actual values goes to zero. Wolfram Mathworld), i.e. that the pattern does not necessarily indicate fraud as large numbers tend to (in my layman's terms) round off and in the case of the 2013 elections the "batched" canvassing rounded off the 60-30-10. Another was on the social media, Mike Beduya of AIM. Even AES Watch stalwarts Dr. Pablo Manalastas made the caveat that the LLN could come into play.

I interviewed Ado Paglinawan who was among the first to note and write about the 60-30-10 "template" as he calls it and I find his rejoinder to be the most logical. It's an important point to clarify as one reporter of GMA News writes of the issue, "Conspiracy or Just Math?" In such matters as election counting and process the political analysts trump the mathematician:

"…I would rather follow the logic of Hermenegildo Estrella (electrical engineer, member of Tandem), both a geek and a political animal… 'The LLN's applies only for trials from the same population, which should mean that these trials (group of votes that are counted) are, or should have come from areas, really representative of the country as a whole.'"… He compared this (batching) with what SWS and Pulse Asia do in the use of 1200 respondents as samples to predict the entire country's preferences in areas where they have initially identified as leaning to their desired outcome… Beduya analyzed the increments between each canvass and charted the peaks and valleys of shares relative to each of the canvass as it progressed from the first to the sixteenth… obviously to dispel aired suspicions that the votes followed a fixed linear pattern.

"But what Purugganan and Beduya were not aware of is that the Comelec, for the first time in the history of Philippine elections, 'batched' provinces and cities into respective canvass clusters… that batching or clustering the provincial inputs is by itself already a humongous anomaly. It presupposes … that a filtering mechanism to, the very least to group the incoming tally into clusters, existed … In layman's tongue using baseball lingo, after the ball was released by the pitcher, it did not go straight to the catcher but passed through a short-stop. This 'short stop' did not only expose the data to possible manipulation... The 60-30-10 is … a premeditated goal preprogrammed to be delivered by strategically inserted default mechanisms against opposition bailiwicks using the combined numbers of administration bailiwicks and strategically designated electronic dagdag-bawas centers…"

And what I would add is this suspicion, that the 25 percent remaining canvass that remains unreported after two weeks if where the final "doctoring" can be done just in case…

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IPP oversupply redux

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

5/27/2013

Daily Tribune

The country is embroiled in several major distractions, from the Hocus PCOS 60-30-10 magic to the super-extended display of BS Aquino government incompetence in the investigation of the Balintang Incident that has threatened to break Philippine-Taiwan relations, another old affliction is growing to be another major economic debacle. The disease is the power piracy cancer that visited the Philippines' Luzon and Visayas power sector is now reemerging in Mindanao. Last week the Aboitiz Power Corp. through its CEO Erramon Aboitiz, expressed fears that a potential oversupply in Mindanao in the next three to four years and reiterating the forecast by the San Miguel Corp. The worse part of the dire prognosis is that it will also be an oversupply of the wrong type of energy and at the highest cost in Asia.

The impending oversupply of electricity in Mindanao is not because the government and the private power sector have been responsive to Mindanao's power crisis but that they have both been intent in preying on the power crisis that they themselves have created for Mindanao. The government delays in rehabilitating the Agus-Pulangui hydro-electric system is the root of the Mindanao power crisis, and allowed BS Aquino to chastise Mindanaoans for complaining and telling them to accept high energy rates. This whetted the appetite of profit hungry private companies to apply and put up power projects there, but with the insistence of imposing their desired mode of energy, i.e. fossil fuel fired generations from coal to diesel fuel, over the desire of Mindanaoans for rehab of the Agus-Pulangui posthaste, development of more hydro-electric and geothermal; hence power rates will be exorbitant.

Government capture by the privatization pirates and corporate greed is the crux of the problem for Mindanaons today suffering as much as six to nine hours brownouts and now pay as high as Luzon and the Visayas when they used to pay only half that. In the midst of these issues the Aboitiz CEO's announcement of imminent oversupply of Mindanao power, Aboitiz Power Corp. just announced also last week that it closed 2012 with P 24.4-billion net income, up by 13 percent year-on-year from the P 21.6 billion in 2011. Much of these additional profits come from the misery of Mindanao power consumers whose plight could not be helped by government due to restriction on public generation of electricity as Epira restricted the entire sector, including power distribution to private corporations. A prime example of this case is Iligan City.

Iligan City has more than sufficient power plants transferred from IPPs such as those of the Alacantaras to the National Power Corp. which was in turn sequestered by the city government for non-payment of taxes. The two power plants from the Alcantaras are in pristine condition and hardly used by the Alcantara IPP (remember, the oversupply contracted by Fidel Ramos). Due to the excuse Epira ban on government engaging in power sector operations the corrupt public officials of Iligan City found the excuse to resell the IPP turned over by the Alcantaras back to the Alcantaras for a centavo to the peso. The Alcantaras will then generate electricity from their old plant, making a huge killing several times over: from the horrendous overprice during Ramos time to the buyback 20 years later and the new Iligan city power rates that will be three times over 20 years ago.

The Epira law and power privatization have been around for the past 20 years and there has not been anything good to show for it. The promise was cheaper, more reliable and more efficient service, but as the "highest power rate in Asia" one can hardly miss the fact that everything about that promise was false, at the same time the continuing blackouts and brownout, shortage and oversupply situations and the pre-election power crises we just witnessed prior to the recent May 13 elections, testify to the fact that neither reliability nor efficiency has been delivered by the privatization program and the Epira. I will also wager that the newly "elected" top six senators proclaimed without complete canvass returns, will never touch on these all important power rate issues. They wouldn't dare touch the powers that rule over the entire political and financial system, many of who contributed funds to their campaigns.

Faraway, in Eastern Europe, in Bulgaria the power price gouging by privatized power companies brought about by Western liberalization and globalization of the country has caused a major popular rebellion. Six Bulgarians have immolated themselves over the past few months, protesting the out-of-control spiral of cost of living starting with their electricity bills. I have been contemplating not self-immolation but an indefinite hunger strike to force the public to wake up to the power injustice our people are facing, if I can find a dozen to join in the effort I'll take that step. We've struggled over a decade and nothing has worked, maybe it's time for this step. Any joiners?

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