Crisis of Sovereignty Series 17
Philippine Computer Society sues Comelec, SmartmaticTIM
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Celis presents incontrovertible forensic findings
The Philippine Computer Society filed on June 29, 2010 with the Office of the Ombudsman, criminal and
administrative complaints against the chairman and six commissioners of the Commission of Elections
and six other public officials who were part of the technical evaluation committee.
The complaint also covered six private persons, including Cesar Flores and Heider Garcia, president and
electoral systems manager of Smartmatic respectively; and Jose Maria Antunez and Nilo Cruz, chairman
and president of Total Information Management.
The respondents have been sued for violation of the Constitution, the anti-graft and corrupt practices law
(RA 3019), the code of conduct and ethical standards (RA 6713) and the government procurement reform
law (RA9184).
Together with Comelec Chairman Jose Melo, the commissioners included in the suit were Gregorio
Larrazabal, Rene Sarmiento, Nicodemu Ferrer, Armando Velasco, Elias Yusoph and Lucenito Tagle.
Also charged were Jose Tolentino, Ester Roxas, and James Arthur Jimenez, all from the Comelec, and
Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua III, chairman of CICT; Timoteo Angelo Diaz de Rivera, director-general of NCC and
Dennis Villorente, director of ASTI.
The complaint included, among others, the following violations:
1) Failure to comply with the 60-40 Filipino-foreign ownership requirements;
2) Violation of transparency and accountability of the entire procurement process;
3) Grave abuse of discretion in
a) Disabling digital signatures of the Board of Election Inspectors;
b) Disabling of the UltraViolet security mask sensor of the PCOS machines;
c) Continuing to pay Smartmatic despite its breach of Contract
d) Disenfranchisement of thousands of voters.
4) Compromising source and hash codes;
5) Perjuring for clarifying under oath that PCOS machines had digital certificates;
6) Allowing the PCOS machines to have “controlling port” opening them to manipulation and fraud;
7) Claiming ignorance as to the absence and failure of security of PCOS machines and integrity of all CF
cards;
8) Distribution of contingency CF cards to different provincial election supervisors.
According to the complainant, it filed the case “in the interest of truth, justice and to expose grave acts that
have resulted in the circumvention of the true will of the electorate, not to mention the waste of billions of
public funds in complete violation of the law.”
The Philippine Computer Society also asked the Ombudsman to investigate the charges and preventively
suspend the public respondents.
Meanwhile, Mary Ann Reyes, business columnist of the “palakpak” newspaper owned by Sonny Belmonte,
recently elected Speaker of the fake House of Representatives, dismissed the vigilant move of the Society as
“peddled only by sore losers from among those who have either ran for elective posts or had financial
stakes in the public bidding for the computerized balloting system.”
She said that “the complaint has no legal leg to stand as the PCOS machines that Comelec had
leased…were embedded with numerous hack-free security features to ensure clean voting and canvassing.”
Reyes said many more things not deserving of our time here because owing to this last sentence, and the
ad hominem attack she dealt on the computer society a quick context analysis can readily show that what
she “wrote” was what we call in public relations as a column feed.
It is obvious that she has not even read the complaint and yet she was commenting on it. As the forensics
of various PCOS machines had already bolstered, the complaint precisely calls the attention of the
Ombudsman that it is hackable.
The PCOS machines had precisely become hackable because the Comelec itself legislated that most of
the minimum system requirements or safeguards be removed to accommodate Smartmatic requests,
assumably for a faster count but more and more prone to manipulation.
I doubt if she even knows what a digital signature is.
Reyes is of course one of the many naïve election participants who were wowed by the PCOS machines
message of “Congratulations” without herself being told by the machine whether those that she voted for
were really the ones that it counted. She is also one of those who have gaga of the fast speed at which the
system produced the election count.
She brags of figures showing the public acceptability of the recent automated elections. Yes of course, but
that is before the general voting public could even come to know that they have been taken for a ride. What
do you think will the public think when they find out the truth? It took a year before the people repudiated
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for the “Garci” scam.
I think this wholesale Hocus PCOs will take less than that if journalists like Reyes will just do just a little bit
of sleuthing and report their findings in their newspaper. I bet you however that even if she discovers what
really happened last May 10, she will fear losing her job writing about it, that is if Sonny Belmonte will allow
her to put in print in the first place.
But enough of Mary Ann, and lets segue to the real independent business daily.
BusinessWorld http://www.bworldonline.com/main/content.php?id=14547
Thursday, July 22, 2010 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES
Strategic Perspective -- by René B. Azurin
A howl of outrage
Elections are what distinguish democratic political systems from "selective" ones.
It is never ever assured, of course, that we powerless citizens can always preserve the privilege of electing
our leaders but if we stand idly by and let powerful interests muck up our election processes then it is like
voluntarily giving that valuable privilege away.
We might as well abandon then any pretense we might have of living in a democracy. We might as well
agree to auction off public offices to the highest bidders and just share in the proceeds.
Thus, we cannot stand idly by and let the mucking up of our May 2010 elections slip by into regrettable
history without a piercing howl of outrage.
Thankfully, a group of outraged citizens -- the Philippine Computer Society through its president, Mr. Nelson
Celis -- has taken angry talk of the Commission on Election’s and technology provider Smartmatic-TIM’s
apparently deliberate bungling of the 2010 automated polls to the next level by filing criminal and
administrative cases against top Comelec and Smartmatic officials.
They charge these officials with "illegal acts that caused irreparable damage to the government and
ultimately to the Filipino people." The rest of us should do what we can to vigorously support this action.
The PCS and Mr. Celis particularly deserve our applause because other notables in the information
technology sector -- who have a fuller appreciation of the extent of the bungling than the public in general --
appear to have chosen a more diplomatic, less confrontational stance toward Comelec and Smartmatic in
the belief -- presumably -- that such an approach will prove more effective in getting government to scrap the
flawed Smartmatic system and introduce improvements in the automation of our future elections.
The problem with this approach, however, is that it impliedly sweeps under the rug what was done in the
elections just past.
It effectively sets aside the fact that the botching of the 2010 poll automation exercise is a monstrous crime
that has already been perpetuated against the Filipino people and those responsible must, in any notion of
justice, be made to pay for that crime.
Taking a less aggressive stance against them only gives them room to eventually wiggle off the hook. It is
naive to think that anything less than public, in-your-face accusations in formal legal proceedings ever works
to even just get their attention, much less get them to, heavens, atone for their sins.
The respondents, according to the complaint, were guilty of "gross negligence and incompetence" and they
"committed grave abuse of discretion resulting in the commission of ‘corrupt practices’ and ‘unethical
conduct’."
"Computers are programmable," Mr. Celis has been heard to say in answer to questions on whether
electronic dagdag-bawas occurred in the May 2010 elections.
Less enigmatically, PCS director Edmundo Casiño states, "These are grounds to doubt the accuracy and
integrity of results. From a technical standpoint, given the disabling by Comelec of some important security
features, we really can’t tell if the votes canvassed actually reflected what was in the precinct election
returns."
Said disabling of security features in the automated election system implemented by Comelec and
Smartmatic-TIM -- as ventilated in recent public forums and discussed in several of my columns -- is
highlighted in the PCS complaint.
Cited, for example, was Comelec Resolution 8804 that implemented the "disabling and denying [of] the ‘BEI
DIGITAL SIGNATURES’ requirement [as] stipulated in the AES Law" by specifically directing the Board of
Election Inspectors to "push the option ‘NO’" when asked if they wanted to digitally sign the election return
they were transmitting.
In this connection, the PCS complaint charges the respondents also with perjury because they claimed in
Congress, under oath, that "all PCOS machines had Digital Certificates as signatures when in fact the
technicians of Smartmatic failed to show or present proof of the machine version of digital signatures."
Also cited was the "disabling of the Ultra-Violet (UV) Security Mark Sensor of the PCOS machines which was
a safeguard feature to determine the authenticity of the ballots being used... thereby opening the opportunity
for electoral fraud using ‘fake’ or unofficial ballots."
Proof was attached in the complaint of an even more serious breach of security when the respondents,
"contrary to law," accepted PCOS machines with a publicly accessible "controlling Console Port which
allowed...the unsecured vulnerability of the PCOS machine...and rendered the recent elections completely
open to malicious control and fraud."
Also mentioned was the decision of the respondents to keep the source and hash codes of the PCOS
machines in an unsecured location on the first floor of the Comelec office instead of "safe and secured at
the vault of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas" as required by law.
As pointed out in the PCS complaint, "This negligence resulted in the ability of unscrupulous individuals to
maliciously tamper with the PCOS machines. " In the final report of the Joint Forensic Team submitted to
both Congress and the Senate, the complaint said that this was presented as a "reality."
Given the nature and number of these faults and violations, it is difficult to conclude that such were the
consequence merely of "vivid negligence and sheer incompetence."
One is almost forced to presume deliberateness and malicious intent.
The PCS complaint points out that the Automated Election System law, R.A. 9369, was enacted "to ensure
TRANSPARENCY, CREDIBILITY, FAIRNESS, and ACCURACY of both national and local elections." That
objective was certainly not met in the 2010 polls.
The question now is - what are those of us who claim we are concerned citizens going to do about it?
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