Crisis of Sovereignty Series 14 – Pumping Patriotic sense into the Filipino
Subservient Chicken starts as a Joke…
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And ends with So-called errors and faults
in the Poll Automation as deliberate.
An emailer once said we should really feel bad about having fake elections, afterall the United States of
America , in the light of recent documentary proofs uncovered, may now be headed by a Kenyan.
Frankly I don’t find that funny at all because that is a sovereignty issue.
When the Philippine Congress reverses our 200 mile limit to please China , and the President of the
Philippines signs up, and not a whimper of protest did I hear from any Filipino, his sovereignty just flew out
of the window.
When the Supreme Court in a decision plagiarized from a foreign position paper, says that Japan has no
culpability whatsoever for institutionalizing comfort women among its Filipino female subjects during World
War II, and neither did I see any indignation from very own male counterparts, then I see some validation in
how our former colonizers called us in our own vernacular “sons of bitches”.
When most Filipinos ran their day with business as usual even in the face of more than 1,000 of our own
men and women becoming victims of extra judicial killings, then I am already desensitized at the gruesome
murder of civilians and journalists in some hill in Maguindanao blamed at one Muslim clan, even if it reeks
of a conspiracy by some members of our government looking for justification for the declaration of martial
law to prolong their hold on power.
When Gloria Macapagal Arroyo walks away scot-free, after openly cheating Fernando Poe Jr. in the 2004
elections while his million fans don’t make a national howl, then I don’t blame her for taking a second shot
by stealing the 2010 election to install her final choice to succeed her, in exchange for a golden parachute
protecting her from any litigations for plunder and other heinous crimes she had committed during her nine-
year term.
But never has the subservient chicken in every Filipino been disturbed to the extent that the present crisis of
sovereignty has provoked.
The recklessness at which the Commission on Election implemented the conspiracy to thwart another
national and local election, in cahoots with the executive, legislative and perhaps the judicial arms of the
government, has left so many bloodstains in its track, it was not hard at all to decipher its rapacity and sense
of impunity nor produce proofs of yet another stab at the people’s sovereignty.
Former President Gloria Arroyo and her chief houdini former Interior and Local Government Secretary had so
framed her exit in a manner both profitable financially and politically. Their stranglehold on Smartmatic was
such that the incoming regime would have no choice but to pay and entrance fee and co-opt concessions for
political survival.
To put this in place, they leveled the Comelec, a constitutional body, to the lowest of hades that used to
belong only to customs and internal revenue. Never before in dastardly fashion that politicians could procure
over the counter, elective positions for less than their weight in gold. Koala bear said that Comelec sold
packaged deals through seven operators nationwide.
The scheme sucked from the very beginning, with Comelec outsourcing its constitutional mandate and
empowerment to Smartmatic, where from its headquarters in Cabuyao, Laguna, Ronnie Puno would
frustrate all safeguards and control the joystick. How this becomes possible is written all over his email
exchanges with hacker Gary Hardaway many many weeks before the elections.
This time, however, the conspirators delivered the country into a constitutional crisis. Today there is golden
opportunity to catch up with these degenerates and put them behind bars as capital punishment has long
been outlawed.
To those who are hard at seeing and hearing the truth, here is a plain and simple talk from Rene Azurin, who
explains scientific corroboration to the assertions that Homobono Adaza, Mentong Laurel and I filed before
the Supreme Court.
BusinessWorld http://www.bworldonline.com/main/content.php?id=14199
Thursday, July 15, 2010 | MANILA , PHILIPPINES
Strategic Perspective -- by René B. Azurin
The digital signatures issue
It is an interesting argument: since the required digital signatures of the members of the Board of Election
Inspectors are absent from the electronically transmitted election returns in the automated May 2010 polls,
then those returns cannot be official; ergo, these cannot be the basis for the official canvass to determine
who are the winners. Since lawyer Homobono Adaza has now filed a motion before the Supreme Court to
declare the elections "null and void" on this basis, we now have to consider this argument seriously.
To begin to understand what’s involved, let’s be clear first on what exactly is meant by this now much bruited-
about term, "digital signature." What it is not -- in one misconception -- is a scanned electronic copy of an
actual signature. In a nutshell, what the term "digital signature" refers to is a special file -- consisting of a
very long series of data bits -- that is installed on a computer to identify who the user is to other parties. In
essence, documents "signed" with this file -- known as a digital certificate -- gives the recipient of the
document the means to verify the identity of the one sending it and to be assured that the document has not
been altered in any way by anyone else. The whole process is actually done through cryptographic codes,
that is, using digital keys (a public one and a private one) that encrypt and decrypt data in a way that is
unique to the sender. In this mathematically imaginative way, sender identity, data integrity, and date and
time of transmission can be independently validated by authorized third parties.
Digital certificates are issued by a trusted "Certification Authority" (like Verisign). These are widely used in e-
commerce, banking, and other applications requiring security and confidentiality.
In the post-election forum on poll automation that I referred to in last week’s column, much discussion
revolved precisely around this particular digital signatures requirement. (I mistakenly neglected to mention
last week that, in addition to the Philippine Computer Society, the Philippine Electronics and
Telecommunications Federation, and the Movement for Good Governance, both Namfrel and Philippine
Software Industry Association president Ms. Beng Coronel were also co-organizers of the forum.) In that
(July 5th) forum, local IT industry leaders tried to provide a critical assessment of Comelec’s and Smartmatic’
s flawed implementation of the poll automation exercise. The intention of this "sharing" was to arrive at
recommendations for improving the conduct of automated elections, if indeed "automated" was going to be
the way we would conduct all our future elections.
In the presentation of Al Vitangcol III, who has a master’s degree in computer science and is a certified
"computer hacking forensic investigator" (and who also happens to be a lawyer), he pointed out that
Comelec resolutions 8786, 8798, and 8803 specifically direct the Board of Election Inspectors to press the
"NO" option when asked by a PCOS machine if they would "like to digitally sign the transmission files with a
BEI digital signature key." This is in direct contravention of the Terms of Reference in the Comelec contract
with automation system provider Smartmatic which requires that, "The system shall transmit digitally signed
and encrypted election results and reports enabled by public/private key cryptography to provide authenticity,
integrity, and non-repudiation utilizing at least a 128-bit encryption scheme [emphasis in the original]."
This Comelec directive also violates the poll automation law (R.A. 8436 as amended by R.A. 9369) which
specifically requires that, "The election returns transmitted electronically and digitally signed shall be
considered as official elections results and shall be used as the basis for the canvassing of votes and the
proclamation of a candidate."
Mr. Vitangcol reported that the Joint Forensic Team, in its findings dated June 9, 2010, notably stated,
"Examination of the PCOS machines revealed that there was no evidence to prove the existence of digital
certificates in the PCOS machines, contrary to the claims of Smartmatic. The technicians of Smartmatic were
not even able to show to the forensic team the machine version of the digital signature."
Another prominent IT forensic expert, also a member of the Joint Forensic Team, Drexx Laggui, said that an
audit of the files on the Smartmatic machine’s main compact flash card, showed that there are "No BEI keys
with which to sign results." He confirmed that "nothing was found to show that digital certificates were in the
cards or in the machines." Mr. Laggui looked amused when he said that "Hecber Cordova and Heider
Garcia (of Smartmatic) assures us that there are digital certificates in the machines, it is just that they have
no tools to extract them." Ah, yes.
The foregoing confirms Mr. Adaza’s contention about the missing digital signatures. Whether or not the
Supreme Court will rule that this is sufficient to nullify the results of the just concluded elections is, however,
another matter. It is essential, though, that the court rules on this matter without any delay.
As I’ve explained in previous columns, the decision of top Comelec and Smartmatic officers to deliberately
not enable the use of personal digital signatures for election officials means that it is impossible now to
pinpoint responsibility for the transmission of a particular set of election results or to validate the authenticity
of data transmitted since anyone could easily impersonate a specific election official and maliciously alter
data being sent. Not using digital signatures also makes it more convenient for Smartmatic and Comelec
officers to explain away the otherwise inexplicable discrepancies in the date and time stamps on assorted
election returns.
And, as I’ve said before, I am convinced that the so-called errors and faults in the implementation of the poll
automation exercise were deliberate. That Comelec and Smartmatic officers can actually face the Filipino
public and claim that this defective election was "a success" is, to me, only a demonstration of unbelievable
cheek. #
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