Speeches
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HAIL TO THE CHIEF and BLESSED BE HIS VICEExplanation of Sen. Nene Pimentel, member of the National Board of Canvassers, of his vote on the proclamation of the newly-elected President and Vice President at the Session Hall of the Batasang Pambansa on June 9, 2010
I agree with the Resolution of the Joint Congress National Canvassing Board that Sen. Benigno Simeon Aquino III be proclaimed president-elect of this Republic. And I congratulate him for his smashing victory. He led his closest rival by more than five million votes. His parents, Senator Ninoy and President Cory must be smiling with parental pride in their heavenly abode over the electoral triumph of their only son. I am certain that they are happy that they did not follow the one or two child policy being bruited about today. Otherwise, the President-elect would not be around today to enjoy his proclamation as the next leader of the nation. Sanguine Since the incoming President has a mind of his own, my expectations of him are sanguine. I sense that he would redirect the focus of the national government towards two things: (a) speeding up the national development with the indispensable assistance of the local government units, and, (b) dissipating the causes of Moro unrest in Mindanao and of the other armed groups in other parts of the country, hopefully, through the adoption of the federal system. Lest I be misunderstood, I do not advocate the adoption of the federal system as a panacea for all the ills of the country. Tough job President-elect Aquino must also implement without fear or favor other laws such as those against corruption, forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, warlords and their private armies, pollution, and, street criminality and abusive political dynasties. On top of his agenda for the nation, I suggest that the human rights of our people must occupy the highest priority even as he will resolutely implement a thousand and one other laws to bring about the general welfare of our people. It’s a tough job. But the perception is that our people have just elected a tough leader, one who has a mind of his own, and, therefore, quite capable in his own right to tackle the challenges of the times. Remarkable Vice Likewise, I also support the Resolution that Mayor Jejomar Binay be proclaimed as the duly elected vice president. I offer him my felicitations on a very remarkable win over well-heeled and well-known rivals for the vice presidency. In the run-up to Election Day, the then leading vice presidential contender, then, predicted – so confident of his victory - that the race for the vice presidency would only determine the place second to him: either the Nacionalista Party Candidate Senator Loren Legarda or the PDP-Laban[1] bet Mayor Jojo Binay who ran in coalition with the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino. The results hit him squarely on the chin like a vicious Pacquiao uppercut that felled him cold. Mayor Binay had caught up with him from a .08 poll survey rating at the campaign start, overtook him in the last 10 days of the campaign and finished him off with an avalanche of something like 727,084 votes at the national canvass yesterday (June 8). Coming from a family that survived on the mercies of the elements in the mean streets of a depressed area in Manila, Mayor Binay had two siblings who both died in infancy due to actual malnourishment or hidden hunger or lack of proper medical care. Considering the dire circumstances of his childhood, it is easy to believe that the new vice president would remember his past and now devote his term as the number two official of the Republic to the uplifting of the lives of the poor and the development of the nation. His expertise on how to make local governments, the basic political structure of the nation, work to deliver the essential services needed by the people is crucial to the success of the new administration. I guess that now that he is the vice president-elect of the land, he would inspire other local governments to follow what he had done to transform Makati from a middling municipality in the ‘70s into the seat of modernity and growth in Metro-Manila that it is today. Regrets Respectfully, however, I must put on record my regrets that the PCOS machines that we used for the very first automated elections we held on May 10, 2010 were not completely reliable and were tainted by certain anomalies. For sure, the irregularities, abnormalities, or glitches, if you like, that came with the process and the results of the automated elections in some parts of the country may not suffice to nullify the entire electoral exercise. In any event, the automated electoral system that we used left a long trail of deficiencies that we must cure if we are ever to use AES machines in future political exercises. The defects were mostly directly machine-generated, but, at least, on one occasion, the shortcoming was specifically man-made as will be shown towards the end of this Statement. Right denied For one, our voters were denied the right to know how and if the votes they had cast for their chosen candidates were duly recorded by the so-called Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines[2]. The paper-trail that I, as a lawmaker, was assured would be available for that purpose, never materialized in any of the election machines used all over the country. All that came out of the PCOS machines after every ballot was read by the machines was an inane, silly, and childish message that said: “Congratulaions! You have successfully voted.” For another, there were several certificates of canvass electronically sent to the national Canvassing and Consolidation Server (CCS) that contained data errors. Strictly speaking, those mistakes should have resulted in the nullification of the votes enumerated in the certificates. Wrong dates Glaring examples are certificates of canvass that bore the correct date of the elections, May 10, 2010, but, which misstated the date and the time of the closure of the polls. For example, in Bacolod City, copies of canvass reports from precincts in the city noted that the polls closed on January 18, 2010 (see Annex A). In Quezon City, Congresswoman Annie Susano shared with me the contents of a CF card that was presumably taken from one of the PCOS machines used in the elections in the city. On-Off Sensors When the CF card was opened by the use of a privately-owned computer, it disclosed that of the seven sensors in the PCOS from which the card was taken, four were put on and off at certain intervals and three were permanently switched off. The sensors, I am told, are the devices that read the contents of the ballots when they are processed by the PCOS machines. The CF card as read showed the following data:
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