The exciting part in the up-coming 2010 election is the prospect of unscrupulous candidates starting to rely on geeks, aside from their goons, to affect the vote. Like a friend said, cheating attempts may actually give more people throughout the country more incentive to learn techie stuff like programming, network management, etc.

Of course, no one wants to see fraudulent elections. But what if Filipinos in the most remote areas of the Philippines suddenly learn computer programming? That’s a possibility, especially if candidates are willing to pay good money for results. But with all of the positive things that have been said about the automation of the election, there are still risk factors that we have to consider. Such risk factors might include:

1. Software – The software used all throughout the process, from ballot reading all the way to returns tallying, must be open for public scrutiny. It may not be proprietary and secret.
2. Devices – Ballots and computers used throughout may fail. Backup/contingency plan must exist and be robust. Sabotage could be the way cheating will be introduced, in order to force reverting to manual process.
3. Architecture – Transmittal and reporting of results could be susceptible to hacking. Instant public visibility of results as counted at source and as transmitted at receipt will mitigate threats of hacking.
4. User – Voting needs to be simple and straightforward. Many Filipinos are not computer literate, and barely literate. PEBKAC errors can lead to many spoiled ballots, which may either be invalidated like in the US, or can be used as a pretense to revert to manual.

Some may argue opening the COMELEC’s system up for review will make it easier for cheaters to find vulnerabilities they can exploit. Yet at the same time, it also allows people to find these same holes and suggest ways to plug them.

The thoughts regarding sabotage make a lot of sense. Any issues encountered with the system will give its detractors more excuses to call for its rollback, potentially making clean and fast elections harder to achieve.

Most important though is making sure voters won’t have a hard time. A relatively easy way to come up with a system that’s not impossible to use is to test it, as detailed. PEBKAC stands for “Problem Exists between Keyboard and Chair”, a term computer experts use to make fun of user errors. Yet it also represents a serious problem for anyone designing a system, especially when user errors in automated elections mean lost ballots.

Automation of elections will mean that Philippines will have an easy and fast electoral process. However, no matter how great is the assurance that no flaws will happen, we should consider the fact that as long as it has not yet proven, we should never assume that this will be safe. It is not safe from errors. Remember that if people who created machines commit errors, ho much more with the machines they created?

With the advent of the modern technology we are using today, we are given the chance to prove that we can bring this modern technology into one of the most important events that will take place on our country. It will make the election in our country be automated for the first time. That means to say that from voting until counting, we will be aided by computers with special programs intended to fulfill this specific purpose. But what do this automation mean for our country?

In principle, election automation will remove the potential for human error/cheating from the ballot review and ballot counting. It can give near instant feedback of the election results. As soon as voting closes, it should be technically possible to get the election results within an hour.

We think it will have the following positive effects:

1. Remove the potential for human error and cheating at ballot reading and tallying
2. Remove the delay and potential for cheating between ballot tallying and preparation of election returns
3. Remove the delay and potential for cheating during tallying of election returns
4. Make elections much cheaper to execute
5. Reduce election violence significantly.

You’re probably wondering why automating the elections could reduce related violence significantly. Well, you won’t have to gun people down if there are no ballots being delivered to polling centers. Though, due to the dual nature of our planned automation (manual polling will continue in less developed parts of the country), such violence won’t disappear entirely. There are also changes that are expected to happen with this automation process. Such changes might be:

1. Quick counts will become obsolete. If the results can be reported on the same day, there will be no market for quick counts. (NAMFREL has recently announced no quick counts for 2010 -Editor)
2. Labor will no longer be needed for several days/weeks to manage and monitor elections. the resulting creative destruction will affect teachers, poll-watchers, men of arms, media people, advertising, and the peripheral economy that they patronize during election period.
3. Guns and goons will give way to geeks and gold. Attempts at cheating will shift to hacking the transmittal of election results from far flung areas to Manila, as well as hacking the tallying of results in Manila. This could have the happy side-effect of pushing the computer and internet revolution into far flung provinces, as money flows to reward technical know-how every six years.
4. Quick direct from population feedback will become a viable option—referendum questions like charter change can be realistically executed in a short period of time if elections become so cheap and quick to do.

In other words, automating elections in the Philippines will have far-reaching effects. At least if and when the entire country’s elections are automated. Conceivably, less people will need to watch over the process, so that means fewer customers for any nearby vendors or establishments in each area’s election stations.

‘One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’

In this July 20, 1969 photo, astronaut Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin Jr. poses beside a US flag on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission. Aldrin and fellow ‘moonwalker’ Neil Armstrong gathered Friday with other Apollo astronauts as part of the first moon landing’s 40th anniversary celebration.

As the Holy Week is coming, it is expected that lots of people will have the need of transportation services in order for them to be able to go to their hometown and exploit this opportunity to have a vacation with their families. Sounds fun, right? But before thinking of fun, we must first think of our safety especially in having trips particularly if having this trip in the sea by means of boats. So with this in mind, Administrator Ma. Elena Bautista of the Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) created the “Pasa-Hero” program.

The primary aim of this “Pasa-Hero” program is to be an answer to complaints we (Marina) do not have enough personnel, not enough budget to check on all the ships all the time said by the administrator. In launching the Pasa-Hero program, Bautista said she also aims to improve the services of shipping lines by encouraging the public to report safety violations. The program offers 50 pesos worth of cell phone load for every valid violation being complained. The public can send their report by texting: marina<space>sumbong<space>name/location/violation/vessel name and send to 2985.

Graft and corruption has been a fact of national life since post-Liberation days. Almost every administration has had its big and sensational graft cases. At every presidential election, one major issue that is always raised is graft and corruption. Opposition leaders denounce the graft being committed by the administration, but once they take over the reins of government, they also commit graft. It’s just a case of different sets of people pigging out at the trough that is the national treasury at different times.

Starting with the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship, the Philippine crisis has been characterized not only by corruption and poverty but also by human rights abuses and a culture of impunity. Bruce Van Voorhis, a member of the Asian Human Rights Commission, said that these aspects of the life of the nation are linked: “People are poor to a large extent because of widespread corruption; those who wield political power violate people’s rights to attain and maintain that power; a lack of judicial punishment in the courts ensures impunity that permits corruption and human rights violations to continue. The cycle has sadly repeated itself for years.”

Corruption retards economic and social development, lowers the quality of public services and infrastructure and raises the prices of goods and services. In all these aspects, it is the poor who suffer the most because they cannot avail themselves, for instance, of the services of private doctors and hospitals or buy expensive goods. In some cases, corruption literally kills: for instance, a ship sinks and hundreds of people die because a coast guard officer was bribed to allow the overloaded, non-seaworthy vessel to leave port.

In 2000, the World Bank estimated that the Philippines had lost $48 billion (P1.968 trillion) to corruption from 1977 to 1997. Think how many kilometers of roads and bridges and how many schoolhouses and hospitals that money could have built. Think of the other public infrastructure and public services that could have been improved with that kind of money. But all that public money went into the private pockets of corrupt, greedy government officials.

]]> http://www.myreviews101.com/cost-of-corruption-in-the-philippines.html/feed 7 http://www.myreviews101.com/iran-launches-rocket-amid-nuke-tension.html http://www.myreviews101.com/iran-launches-rocket-amid-nuke-tension.html#comments Fri, 28 Nov 2008 04:18:46 +0000 admin http://www.myreviews101.com/?p=176

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran has successfully launched a rocket, Iran’s state television reported on Wednesday.

The report follows an announcement earlier this month that Iran had test-fired a new generation of surface-to-surface missile. The news comes amid tension between Iran and Israel and the West over Tehran’s disputed nuclear work.

Television did not give any further details of the launch of the “Kavosh 2,” which means “Explorer 2″, saying they would be announced later.

Iran caused international concern in February by testing a domestically made Explorer 1 rocket as part of its satellite program. Tehran said it needed two more similar tests before putting a domestically made satellite into orbit.

On August 17, Iran said it had put a dummy satellite into orbit on a domestically made rocket for the first time. U.S. officials said the attempted launch was a failure.

The video details just how horribly KFC treats chickens—birds are so crippled that they can’t even walk, live birds are forced into tanks of scalding-hot water while completely conscious and able to feel pain, and in Moorefield, West Virginia slaughterhouse workers kill birds by slamming them against the wall and stomping on them!

Pamela is calling on consumers to “Kick the Bucket” and boycott KFC until the company agrees to make some simple improvements in the way it treats animals.

If you believe with her advocacy you can  sign the petition form and join her and other compassionate consumers everywhere in taking the coarse business elsewhere until the company agrees to take animal welfare seriously.

Of course, the best thing that you can do to help animals is to stop eating them, so please consider trying a vegetarian diet—just like me. And if you don’t think animal cruelty is a strong enough argument for vegetarianism you might want to at least read up on how eating meat causes impotence and slows the flow of blood to all the organs, not just to the heart, if you catch my drift.