Atty. Rene Sarmiento, Commissioner on Elections gave a talk on Voters’ Education to the Daughters of St. Paul on March 20, 2010. For the first time, the Philippines will conduct full automated elections on May 10, 2010. He pointed out that it’s a milestone in the Philippine history and a big step to real democracy. He acquainted the assembly to the new voting procedure: a) to look for one’s precincts which are clustered into groups of five (5), b) to present one’s COMELEC issued Voter’s ID, c) to shade the oval that corresponds to the names of the chosen candidates with the pen provided by the election officer, d) to submit one’s ballot to the election officer who will feed it into the PCOS machine for counting, e) fingernails will be stained with indelible ink and one has to wait until the ballot is dropped into the ballot box before leaving the polling place.
Roberto Verzola, one of the Convenors of Never Again Halalang Marangal, a watchdog for a clean and honest election gave a talk on Estimating the Chances of Success of the Automated Election System. He pointed out possible scenarios of a failure of election due to the following observations: Precinct Count Optical Scanners (PCOS) which were manufactured from China and delivered by Smartmatic, in Manila were not fully tested by COMELEC. There was no mention of source code for every machine. The system was audited by international recognized certification entity but no certification, no full report has been released to the public. Logistics Providers, and forwarders are unknown, etc… Despite the negative feedback, everyone was hopeful. He urged each one to hold vigil for a successful and orderly election which is significant to the country’s political and economic stability.
On April 26 at 5:00, P.M., local candidates of Pasay came and shared their flatforms once elected in office. They were Tony Calixto for Mayor, Moti Arceo for Vice-mayor, Mr. Advincula and Mrs. Luisa Petallo for councilors.