Critic-at-Large

Tribute to Bienvenido N. Santos

2011-01-19T03:12:00.001+08:00

The Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center De La Salle University
The University of Santo Tomas Varsitarian
The University of Santo Tomas Literary Society
The National Commission for Culture and the Arts

present

A Performance-Reading in Honor of Bienvenido N. Santos

in connection with the 2011 TABOAN (Davao) National Literary Arts Fest

Dear Tish
A Creative Nonfictional Monologue Taken from the Writings of Bienvenido N. Santos
Dr. Isagani R. Cruz, Professor Emeritus and University Fellow

and

Selections from The Wounded Stag
Dr. Marjorie M. Evasco, University Fellow

19 January 2011, Wednesday, 5:00-6:30 p.m.
Yuchengco Seminar Rooms 407-408, De La Salle University

Move to another site

2010-07-03T04:44:00.000+08:00

I will discontinue this blog and continue it in my new website.

http://www.isaganicruz.net

The Bologna Process and the Philippines

2010-06-22T05:57:00.000+08:00

The Bologna Process may not be proceeding as smoothly as its 47 European member countries wish it would (they missed their 2010 deadline for full implementation), but it certainly is, as Clifford Adelman of the US Institute for Higher Education Policy said recently, “the most far reaching and ambitious reform of higher education ever undertaken. It is still a work in progress, but as it has attracted both considerable attention and imitation of some of its features by former colonial countries in Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and Australia, it has sufficient momentum to become the dominant global higher education model within the next two decades.”

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported last May 12 that “representatives from the three governments [of China, Japan, and South Korea] met in Tokyo last Friday … [and] agreed to explore credit transfers, exchange programs, and quality control in universities across the region.”  Earlier, the Asia-Pacific Quality Network (APQN) launched a similar process for our region.  There is no doubt that we Filipinos have to take the Bologna Process very seriously.

What does the Bologna Process mean for our schools?  I shall list some actions that the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and our Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have to take if we want to be in step with the rest of the world.

We have to expand the system of specifying Minimum Learning Competencies or Standards used by DepEd to include HEIs & CHED.  Elementary and high school teachers are used to outcomes-based instruction, because they talk about competencies all the time.  These competencies are used not just for preparing textbooks and teacher-training sessions, but for preparing lesson plans for individual classes.  In contrast, college teachers have general objectives, often not even couched in psychomotor, cognitive, or affective terms, for courses that are usually planned and taught independently of each other.  The much-misunderstood constitutional right to academic freedom is often used to justify a lack of clear and articulated focus on what a student is really supposed to learn in a particular lesson or course.

We have to include both content and skills in student learning standards.  Falling into the either-or trap of saying that we need either information or process (transmissive versus transformative teaching) is no longer excusable today.  There are bits of information that every student needs to memorize (sometimes called Cultural Literacy or Core Knowledge), as well as processes of learning that the student needs to internalize (sometimes misunderstood as the whole of Constructivism).

We have to specify learning outcomes, levels of challenge, competencies, and student workload.  DepEd specifies the first three, but not the fourth; CHED needs to start pushing for all four.  The most difficult of these is student workload.  The Bologna Process is student-centered, and what we call units or credits are computed not according to how many hours the teacher is in the classroom, but how many hours the student takes to study a subject, whether inside or outside the classroom.

We have to include graduates and employers in curriculum and syllabus development.  Some HEIs already do this, particularly those run by administrators with business backgrounds, but all HEIs should do this.  In the Bologna Process, education is demand-driven; schools have to comply with what the future employers of their graduates require.  Administrators and teachers should not determine learning goals; employers should.  This is the most controversial issue in Europe today.  Many teachers and students do not want education to be “commercialized” or beholden to industry.  Unfortunately for traditionalists and purists, most students today do not pay tuition to “push the frontiers of knowledge” or “to challenge received wisdom”; they invest the money of their parents to buy pieces of paper that will get them jobs.

We have to include faculty of other universities when we revise the curriculum and syllabuses of our own university.  Cooperation is a major goal of the Bologna Process.  Fortunately, we are ahead of Europe in this regard.  We have had consortiums of various kinds for some time now.  Nevertheless, we still have a lot to do to ensure inter-HEI “comparability” (another key term in the Bologna Process).  A student taking Freshman English 1 in one HEI, for example, should be able to do whatever another student can do at the end of the same subject in another HEI.  To ensure that outcomes are comparable if not identical, teachers from other HEIs should be included in the curriculum committees of an HEI.

We have to ensure that undergraduates can evaluate recent research and that master’s theses represent original research.  The Bologna Process raises the bar on research and education.  What we usually require undergraduates to do is to know what is going on in a field, not to criticize the latest developments in a field.  We usually require that of master’s students, who have to do a “Review of the Literature” for their theses.  The Bologna Process says that our master’s students should be doing what our doctoral students are currently doing, namely, working at the cutting edge of their field.  Master’s theses should be what our doctoral dissertations are now.

We have to think in terms of student load, not faculty load. One of the key items in the Bologna Process is the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS), defined as “the workload students need in order to achieve expected learning outcomes. Learning outcomes describe what a learner is expected to know, understand and be able to do after successful completion of a process of learning. They relate to level descriptors in national and European qualifications frameworks.”

For example, if a student, per week, takes 3 hours to listen to a teacher in a classroom, another 3 hours to read an assigned text in a library, and another 3 hours to write a term paper at home, the student should get 9 hours credits for the subject, not 3 units as in our current system. The 3 units that students get in our system are computed not according to the student’s time, but according to the teacher’s time. In other words, our administrative system is teacher-centered rather than student-centered.

Of course, there is a problem. A bright student could take only 1 hour to read an assigned text and only 1 hour to work on a paper, while a dumb student could take 5 hours to read and 5 hours to write. Clearly, it is impossible to figure out what the workload is for an average or typical student. This is one reason ECTS has not really been implemented very much nor very well in Europe.

Nevertheless, we really should start thinking in terms of students rather than teachers. This will be a major paradigm shift for many administrators, who usually spend more time with faculty rather than students. We should start thinking of assigning different credits for subjects that are not equivalent to each other in terms of workloads. For example, “hard” or “major” subjects require more time on the part of students than “easy” or “minor” subjects. Perhaps teachers of major subjects should be paid more than teachers of minor subjects. (I can hear the howls of protest, not from teachers of major subjects, but from teachers of General Education or GE subjects.)

We have to find a way out of the rigid grid of one-hour three-times-a-week courses. The three-hours per week allotment for most subjects is one of the most change-resistant of education practices. Teachers that demand more time or need less time for their subjects often get dirty looks from administrators, who have to think in terms of pay per hour. How, for example, do you pay a teacher who teaches one hour one week, two hours the next week, five hours the third week, and so on, depending on the complexity of the lesson? If there is only one teacher, we can always go on a case-by-case basis (in Philippine English, case-to-case), but if all teachers demand flexible times, no administrator can administrate.

We have to have three years worth of major subjects. This is the most dramatic of changes required of us by the Bologna Process. Except for those taking professional courses such as engineering and accounting, our college students get only two years of specialized or major courses. The first two years of a four-year college course are taken up mostly by GE subjects. Once basic education is extended by two years, however, most if not all these GE subjects will be taken up in high school, thus freeing the college years for more major subjects. Clearly, CHED’s technical panels have their work cut out for them. It takes at least two years to have a new curriculum conceptualized and accepted by all stakeholders (particularly since we should now include graduates and employers in the curriculum development process). The time to start is right now (in Philippine English, now na).

We have to give students a Diploma Supplement in addition to a Diploma and a Transcript of Records. Bologna requires all universities to specify what a student has actually learned to do, not just to indicate the student’s grades or degrees. The idea is for employers to know, just from reading a Supplement, what the graduate is qualified to do.

We have to have a discipline-specific Qualifications Framework statement. We have to list the qualifications (competencies or skills) that every subject in every major course guarantees about a student. For example, can a student who passes English 3 already become a call center agent without further training? If not, which subject can promise this qualification? If no subject or course in college guarantees this, why are graduates encouraged to apply to call centers?

We have to identify the jobs that a student with the degree is qualified to do. The hardest thing for many departments to do will be to identify the specific jobs their graduates are qualified for. Engineers obviously can be engineers and nurses can be nurses, but what is the job that a business or humanities major is particularly prepared for that nobody else can do?

We have to match degrees with industry needs. The bottom line is removing the gap between education and industry. Our famous mismatch – but definitely not all our education problems – will be solved once we take the Bologna Process seriously.

For the record: P-Noy on education

2010-06-11T04:55:00.003+08:00

Before his election as Philippine president, I published a series of columns on Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III's education platform. So we will remember and hold him accountable for his campaign promises, I am posting my comments on his ideas about education:

I have to hand it to Noynoy. He is the only presidential candidate that has thought through the problems of education in our country. Even if all the candidates say that they regard the deterioration of public education as the most important and pressing issue to be faced by the new government, none of the others have put forward any kind of education reform program that makes sense.

I will present Noynoy’s 10-point program for educational reform. I may not agree with all of his points, but I respect and salute him for at least bringing these points to the table for public debate. Everyone else appears to be clueless as far as our educational system is concerned.

Noynoy begins his discussion of education with this unequivocal statement: “Let me lay out the ten most critical things I will focus on to fix this problem of basic education.

1. “I will expand basic education in this country from a short 10-year cycle to a globally-comparable 12 years before the end of the next administration (2016).”

2. “All public school children (and all public schools) will have a full year of pre-schooling as their introduction to formal schooling by 2016.”

3. “I want a full basic education for ALL Muslim Filipino children anywhere in the country.”

4. “I will re-introduce technical-vocational education in our public high schools to better link schooling to local industry needs and employment.”

5. “By the end of the next administration, every child must be a reader by Grade 1.”

6. “I will rebuild the science and math infrastructure in schools so that we can produce more scientists, engineers, technicians, technologists and teachers in our universities so that this country can be more globally competitive in industry and manufacturing.”

7. “I will expand the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education Program (GASTPE) to a target of 1 million private HS students every year through education service contracting (ESC) while doing away with the wasteful education voucher system (EVS) of this administration.”

8. “My view on the medium of instruction is larger than just the classroom. We should become tri-lingual as a country: Learn English well and connect to the world. Learn Filipino well and connect to our country. Retain your dialect and connect to your heritage.”

9. “I will not tolerate poor textbook quality in our schools. Textbooks will be judged by three criteria: quality, better quality, and more quality.”

10. “I will build more schools in areas where there are no public or private schools in a covenant with LGUs so that we can realize genuine education for all.”

Let us now take each of these campaign promises one by one.

Noynoy correctly sees that the key problem facing our educational system is its short length. No matter how intelligent our children are, they can never learn in 10 years what children in other countries learn in 12. Anyone who has ever crammed for an exam (and who has not?) knows that cramming never works. We may pass a particular exam, but after the exam is finished, we will remember nothing of what we studied.

Similarly, cramming 12 years of learning into 10 years just does not work. Again and again, our children fail international exams, because other children have had more time to absorb the knowledge and skills that we cram into the shortest educational cycle in the world.

Therefore, Noynoy’s promise that he will expand basic education to 12 years, instead of the current 10, is correct and should be lauded. I am in complete agreement with him on this issue, and so are all the educators in all the other countries in the world. Other countries regard us as an educationally backward nation, primarily because we do not educate our children long enough.

Noynoy’s second point is also well taken. Children around the world now go to school earlier, not because basic education starts earlier, but because there are all sorts of schools that prepare them for Grade 1. These schools may be named in various ways (nursery, day care, kindergarten, pre-school, etc.), but the idea is the same: before entering Grade 1, a child should already know how to read.

There is no question on the theoretical level that all children should have at least one year of school before elementary school. (Most private schools already require such a year.) In practice, however, public school pupils do not, for the simple reason that the government cannot afford to fund the requirements of a pre-elementary year (school buildings, classrooms, tables and chairs, teachers, instructional materials).

Noynoy believes that, once he curbs corruption, the government will have the extra money to fund the extra year. This remains to be seen, but it is clear that Noynoy has his finger on the pulse of international education. With all the advances in teaching strategies nowadays, it is easy to teach pre-school children how to read. Most of our children enter public school at age 6 or 7. In other countries, 5-year-old children typically already know how to read. You can imagine how effective our school system would be if children already knew how to read before they enrol in Grade 1.

The third item in Noynoy’s 10-point program for educational reform concerns Muslim children. Says Noynoy, “I want a full basic education for ALL Muslim Filipino children anywhere in the country.”

There are huge differences in philosophy and objectives, as well as in teaching methods, between the Muslim educational system (madaris) and that of DepEd, despite DepEd Order 51, s. 2004. The problem of integrating one into the other, however, cannot be solved only by the two Education Secretaries (DepEd and ARMM). The bigger problem of the religious, cultural, and political conflict between Christians and Muslims not just in Mindanao but all over the country (including Metro Manila, which now has unacknowledged ghettos) has to be solved first.

There is, moreover, another problem with integration. The integration should not be only one way. Just as it is important for Muslim children to know our Christian heroes (Rizal, etc.), it is important for Christian children to know our Muslim heroes (Sultan Kudarat, etc.). Many Muslim children have read the Christian Bible, but how many Christian children have read the Qur’an? If Noynoy is serious about educating all Muslim children, he must study the teaching strategies of our ancestors. According to the first Christians to reach our shores in the 16th century, we already knew then how to read and write Arabic.

Noynoy’s fourth item in his educational agenda involves tech-voc. He says, “I will re-introduce technical-vocational education in our public high schools to better link schooling to local industry needs and employment.”

About time! In many advanced countries, a high school diploma is enough for someone to find a job. There is no reason for an ordinary office worker to have a college degree. Many of our call centers, in fact, now accept non-college graduates. Our problem today, however, is that public high schools have no time to prepare students for the workplace. Once the two missing years are added to basic education, however, there will be time for the system to give students the skills to find jobs or become entrepreneurs.

Noynoy continues with his fifth point: “By the end of the next administration, every child must be a reader by Grade 1.”

Since his plan is to institute universal pre-school, this point is no longer necessary to make. A good pre-school education will make a child a reader at the beginning (not at the end) of Grade 1.

With his sixth point, Noynoy turns his attention to tertiary education. He says, “I will rebuild the science and math infrastructure in schools so that we can produce more scientists, engineers, technicians, technologists and teachers in our universities so that this country can be more globally competitive in industry and manufacturing.”

The Congressional Commission on Science, Technology, and Engineering (COMSTE), in which I sit as part of the Technical Advisory Council, repeatedly makes the same point. We need to increase the pool of college students taking up science and engineering courses. One way to do this is to excite our high school students by teaching them such subjects as Industrial Chemistry, Digital Design, Molecular Biology, and Number Theory. These subjects are now taught, by the way, in our science high schools (as they are in the regular high schools of many advanced countries); the materials are ready and can easily be used in all our public schools.

While the problems of the public schools are humongous, private schools have their share of problems, too, primarily financial. Noynoy addresses these financial problems with his seventh point. He says, “I will expand the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education Program (GASTPE) to a target of 1 million private HS students every year through education service contracting (ESC) while doing away with the wasteful education voucher system (EVS) of this administration.”

This is such a minor matter that I wonder why Noynoy even bothered to bring it up. Perhaps he just wanted to take a swing at the Arroyo government. It will take a mere DepEd Order to make this come true. If Secretary Mona Valisno is wise, she will issue such an order effective this June and steal the thunder from Noynoy.

The eighth point has to do with the thorny issue of the medium of instruction. My stand has always been clear: students should be taught in the language that they use, not in a language that they are still learning. International educational research has established a long time ago that teaching a language in the same language does not work. Local education research has shown in experiment after experiment that Filipino children learn math and science faster and better when they are not taught in English.

Therefore, I agree in general with Noynoy’s stand on the medium of instruction. He says, as his eighth point, “My view on the medium of instruction is larger than just the classroom. We should become tri-lingual as a country: Learn English well and connect to the world. Learn Filipino well and connect to our country. Retain your dialect and connect to your heritage.”

I say “in general” because Noynoy makes a common mistake. He reveals his ignorance when he uses the word “dialect.” Bicolano, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Ilocano, and Tagalog are not dialects. They are languages.

The ninth point in Noynoy’s ten-point agenda for educational reform concerns textbooks. “I will not tolerate poor textbook quality in our schools,” he says. “Textbooks will be judged by three criteria: quality, better quality, and more quality.”

When I was the Department of Education (DepEd) Undersecretary for Programs and Projects in 2001, I changed the way the content of the textbooks was evaluated. I asked my friends in universities to sit down with DepEd’s textbook experts to see if the textbooks then being proposed were good.

Since they were nationally and internationally famous scholars and since they themselves had no vested interest in any basic education textbooks, my friends were objective and strict. As a result, none of the textbooks then proposed passed their scrutiny.

In my stint at DepEd, I did not approve the use of any textbooks, except those that had already been approved by previous administrations. Since I could do only so much in the time I had, I focused on not allowing bad textbooks to enter the system. Had I stayed longer, I would have started looking at the textbooks already in use, to see what should be removed from the system.

There is no question that the textbooks currently used in our public schools leave much to be desired. I am not talking of grammar. I have a standing bet that no one can send me a paragraph written by a Filipino that does not contain a grammatical or structural mistake. (I can say this with confidence because my teacher Fr. Joseph Galdon, S.J., taught me to spot even the tiniest error in sentences written by the great international masters of the English language.)

I am talking about content. For example, our English textbooks still do not realize that adverbs can modify nouns. Our Filipino textbooks still teach Tagalog, rather than Filipino. Our Mathematics textbooks do not use what children can see around them, thus defying the ancient – now mistakenly called constructivist – principle that we learn only from what we already know. Our Science textbooks do not excite children enough to think of pursuing careers in science. Our Social Studies (previously, Makabayan) textbooks do not make our children proud to be Filipino and do not motivate them to stay in our country.

Noynoy cannot fulfill this particular promise even if he had more than six years in the presidency, because all our public school textbooks (I repeat, all) are of poor quality. The process of telling publishers what to put in a textbook (involving a “textbook call” and “learning standards or competencies”) takes more than a year. Evaluating the content of a proposed textbook will take at least a year. The bidding process will take another year. Printing will take another year. Training teachers to use the new textbook will take more than one year. By that time, Noynoy’s term will be almost over. We are not even talking of evaluating textbooks already in use.

Noynoy’s tenth and final point is managerial. He says, “I will build more schools in areas where there are no public or private schools in a covenant with LGUs so that we can realize genuine education for all.”

I do not know why Noynoy mentions this point. Perhaps he just wanted to have ten points rather than eight or nine. The LGUs, despite the Local Government Code, are really in practice under the control of the President. There is no need for a covenant. Schools can be built as long as there are funds to build them or, as Noynoy’s camp never fails to remind us, if the funds do not go into the pockets of corrupt officials.

Overall, then, what do I think of Noynoy’s education policy?

Clearly, among the presidential candidates, Noynoy has the best proposals for education. Adding two more years to basic education, requiring pre-school, ensuring that a high school diploma is enough for employment, and strengthening math and science teaching are crucial to improving our educational system. His ideas on madaris and textbooks will remain pipe dreams, no matter who becomes his DepEd Secretary. He need not bother himself with “Every child a reader by Grade 1,” GASTPE, or the LGUs, since these are proposals that any DepEd Secretary can implement in his or her first month in office. I do not completely agree with his stand on the medium of instruction, although I realize that, this being an emotional rather than a scholarly issue, he is being merely politically safe by championing Filipino, English, and vernacular languages equally.

(First published in The Philippine Star, 4, 11, 18 March 2010.)

Global Filipino Nation report

2010-05-28T19:10:00.000+08:00

GLOBAL FILIPINO NATION

Empowering Filipinos onshore and overseas

INTERIM REPORT

Change agent for effective governance

27 May 2010

FOREIGN OBSERVERS CHALLENGE ELECTION LEGITIMACY

[This is the Interim Report of a 2010 Election Observers Team of Global Filipino Nation (GFN), a non-partisan international organization of offshore and onshore Filipinos in 30 countries committed to "Building the Global Filipino Nation for Good Governance." This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the GFN Convenors. Questions about this Interim Report may be directed to globalfilipinos@gmail.com.]

1. THE ELECTION RESULTS TRANSMITTED FROM THE PRECINCTS DO NOT HAVE DIGITAL SIGNATURES OF THE BOARD OF ELECTION INSPECTORS.

Based on industry standards, the digital signature on the precinct Election Return (ER) is a summary (hash value) of the ER encrypted using the BEI’s secret key. The digital signature serves two purposes:

a. It identifies the BEI personnel and the precinct number from which the ER came; and

b. It ensures that the precinct ER is not modified in any way by dagdag-bawas (immutability of precinct data).

Because of the importance of digital signatures in maintaining data integrity and security, REPUBLIC ACT 9369 states in SEC. 19 A. In the election of president, vice-president, senators and party-list system; and B. In the election of local officials and members of the House of Representatives:

"Within one hour after the printing of the election returns, the chairman of the board of election inspectors or any official authorized by the Commission shall, in the presence of watchers and representatives of the accredited citizens' arm, political parties/candidates, if any, electronically transmit the precinct results to the respective levels of board of canvassers, to the dominant majority and minority party, to the accredited citizen's arm, and to the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP).

"The election returns transmitted electronically and digitally signed shall be considered as official election results and shall be used as the basis for the canvassing of votes and the proclamation of a candidate."

Also in SEC. 25. "Authentication of Electronically Transmitted Election Results. - The manner of determining the authenticity and due execution of the certificates shall conform with the provisions of Republic Act No. 7166 as may be supplement or modified by the provision of this Act, where applicable, by appropriate authentication and certification procedures for electronic signatures as provided in Republic Act No. 8792 [Electronic Commerce Act] as well as the rules promulgated by the Supreme Court pursuant thereto."

REPUBLIC ACT 8792, SEC. 5. Defines "e. “Electronic Signature” refers to any distinctive mark, characteristic and/or sound in electronic form, representing the identity of a person and attached to or logically associated with the electronic data message or electronic document or any methodology or procedures employed or adopted by a person and executed or adopted by such person with the intention of authenticating or approving an electronic data message or electronic document."

SEC. 8 also stipulates. "Legal Recognition of Electronic Signatures. - An electronic signature on the electronic document shall be equivalent to the signature of a person on a written document if that signature is proved by showing that a prescribed procedure, not alterable by the parties interested in the electronic document, ..."

SEC. 9 provides. "Presumption Relating to Electronic Signatures. - In any proceedings involving an electronic signature, it shall be presumed that:

a. The electronic signature is the signature of the person to whom it correlates; and

b. The electronic signature was affixed by that person with the intention of signing or approving the electronic document unless the person relying on the electronically signed electronic document knows or has notice of defects in or unreliability of the signature or reliance on the electronic signature is not reasonable under the circumstances.

FIRST ISSUE: Comelec Bid Bulletin No. 10 27 April 2009 Public Bidding / 2010 Elections Automation Project, dated 15 April 2009, states: “The digital signature shall be assigned by the winning bidder to all members of the BEI and the BOC (whether city, municipal, provincial, district). For the NBOCs, the digital signatures shall be assigned to all members of the Commission and to the Senate President and the House Speaker. The digital signature shall be issued by a certificate authority nominated by the winning bidder and approved by the Comelec.”

There were fears at that time that if Smartmatic gets a copy of the secret keys of the BEIs, it would theoretically have the power to change the ERs. Smartmatic did not pinpoint a trusted third party, Digital Certificate Authority, up to the time of the SECOND ISSUE.

SECOND ISSUE: Comelec Resolution 8786, dated March 4, 2010, no longer required the use of digital signatures. The Resolution stated:

"WHEREAS, there is a need to amend or revise portions of Resolution No. 8739 in order to fine tune the process and address procedural gaps;

x x x x x x x x

SEC. 40. Counting of ballots and transmission of results

f) Thereafter, the PCOS shall automatically count the votes and immediately display a message ‘WOULD YOU LIKE TO DIGITALLY SIGN THE TRANSMISSION FILES WlTH A BEI SIGNATURE KEY?’, with a ‘YES’ or 'NO’ option;

g) Press ‘NO’ option. The PCOS will display ‘ARE YOU SURE YOU DO NOT WANT TO APPLY A DIGlTAL SIGNATURE?’ with a ‘YES’ and ‘NO’ option;

h) Press ‘YES’ option.”

WHY WOULD COMELEC SUDDENLY REMOVE THIS VERY IMPORTANT FEATURE OF THE SYSTEM?

1. The Bid Bulletin Specifications required Digital Signatures to be available by 11 November 2009 to Comelec personnel, from BEIs to the Board of Canvassers to the Operators of the Comelec Server, its back-up and to the Servers of the dominant majority, minority, accredited citizens arm and KBP- for lab and field test, mock election test, testing and sealing, and on election day.

2. The Technical Specifications in the same Bid Bulletin required:

" Component 1A- Election Management System (EMS)

2. The system shall require authorization and authentication of all users, such as, but not limited to, usernames and passwords, with multiple user access levels. (For customization)"

"Component 1B- Precinct-Count Optical Scan (PCOS)

7. The system shall require authorization and authentication of all operators, such as, but not limited to, usernames and passwords, with multiple user access levels."

"Component 1C- Consolidation/Canvassing System (CCS)

The consolidation/canvassing system (CCS) shall be secure, fast, accurate, reliable and auditable, and able to:

1.12 Allow the BOCs to digitally sign all electronic results and reports before transmission;"

3. Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin said on 26 May that he was wrong in his position on the absence of the digital signatures of the Boards of Election Inspectors on the election returns. Locsin, at the hearing of the House committee on suffrage and electoral reforms, said the digital signatures of the precinct count optical scan machines were enough compliance with the law. He had said earlier that the BEIs should have encoded their own signatures on the electronically transmitted results. "I admit I was wrong. There is a real reason why a PCOS signature is a practical equivalent of a digital signature," he said.

RA 9369 AND RA 8792 RECOGNIZED PEOPLE, NOT MACHINES, AS AUTHENTICATORS THROUGH DIGITAL SIGNATURES. COMELEC HAD THE SAME PRESCRIPTION IN ITS BID BULLETIN AND ITS PRONOUNCEMENTS until that issuance of Comelec Resolution 8786.

4. Observers are at a loss as to the valid operational justification to remove the digital signatures of the BEIs.

The Comelec was quoted as saying "the move [not using the digital signatures] was aimed at removing one step in the transmission process to minimize human intervention and protect the results of the balloting.

Will three keys to be entered prior to transmitting significantly delay the transmission process, given that the transmission has been observed to take several minutes?

Was the intent to protect the results and provide comforting assurance? Indeed what happened in minds of objective observers is the REVERSE. No assurance can be made that the transmitted results are the same as the actual votes.

5. The Philippine Computer Society (PCS) disclosed that Comelec considered the i-button key of the BEI Chairman and the PINs of the two BEI members as sufficient equivalents for a digital signature.

The PCS members did not agree that the i-button and PIN features were sufficient to protect the authenticity, integrity, confidentiality and veracity of the transmission of the ERs. It was their consensus that these features were not the security features contemplated by RA 9369.

MAJOR IMPLICATIONS:

1. There was a significant divergence from the law, including non-compliance with the provisions of the Bid and the Automation Contract.

2. There is now a dark cloud on the authenticity, integrity, confidentiality, veracity and accuracy of the vote counts in the ERs.

3. The process prejudices the entire electoral process. Several voting result irregularities, discrepancies in printouts vs. transmitted results, malfunctioning of PCOS machines, slowdown in transmission, and worse, reports of unauthorized vote shaving and changing for a fee, have come into light.

2. THE NUMBER OF DISENFRANCHISED VOTERS IS SUFFICIENT TO AFFECT GREATLY THE RESULTS OF THE ELECTIONS.

Voters Lists were posted on the walls outside the clustered precincts (with a maximum of 1000 registered voters) only on voting day.

Although precinct assignments were mailed to individual voters by barangay captains, most received theirs late in the voting day or not at all. Voters have great difficulty in locating and identifying their clustered precincts. Long queues developed with voters waiting several (from one to six) hours before voting. As a result, many, especially women and the elderly, decided to forego voting.

Comelec's consultant on queue management estimates the number of disenfranchised voters to range from 2 million to 8 million.

This number can easily affect the results in the presidential, vice presidential and senatorial race especially the close ones.

3. THE AUTOMATED ELECTION SYSTEM (AES) WAS IMPLEMENTED LIVE WITHOUT THE APPROPRIATE FIELD TESTING, AND LAW-SPECIFIED TESTING IN ACTUAL ELECTIONS.

RA 9369 SEC. 6 states "for the regular national and local election, which shall be held immediately after effectivity of this Act (in 2007), the AES shall be used in at least two highly urbanized cities and two provinces each in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao ..."

"In succeeding regular national or local elections, the AES shall be implemented nationwide."

Furthermore, the Bid Specifications, Annex E, stated that "There shall be as many field tests as may be necessary until the requirements for the tests have been satisfied provided that the tests shall not go beyond December 5, 2009. All systems shall be tested on site, i.e. in selected locations nationwide covering different test voting centers, test consolidation sites, and test canvassing sites. The test shall also include live transmission of precinct results. COMELEC personnel shall operate all systems in the test."

No such tests were conducted by December 5, 2009. In fact, a precinct test using 10 sample ballots were conducted in selected precincts starting in February 2010. No field tests in an entire municipality, city and even province were conducted. This is further aggravated by the fact that 4,690 polling centers have no cell phone signal from telecommunication firms affecting about 5 million registered voters.

Worse, on May3, seven days before elections, Comelec and Smartmatic discovered malfunctioning of Compact Flash cards with erroneous votes for local elections. They hurriedly imported new ones and reconfigured all 76,340 CF cards for use in May 10. This reconfiguration action was not fully tested and certified, thereby resulting in documented irregularities where precinct transmissions showed 10 votes (used during the testing) and other unexplained wrong data in many ERs.

4. THE SOURCE CODE REVIEW WAS NOT COMPLETED AND INITIAL FINDINGS WERE NOT ADDRESSED.

Comelec commissioned SysTest Lab of the USA to review the source code. SysTest Lab, after three months, submitted a report with some 4,000 comments for action by Comelec. There was no official announcement by Comelec whether these SysTest comments were addressed.

Comelec also opened up to political and other interested parties the review of the source codes in February 2010. No one agreed to it as only a part of the source code was made available, and one month's time was given. To the parties, it would not be a real source code review but only a walk-through.

The lack of transparency in this source code review, among others, led the Supreme Court to order Comelec to produce the relevant documentation on these items.

The non-transparent action led to suspicions and worries by citizen watchdogs that insufficient testing and checking would happen—leading to the use and non-recognition of a malicious code, the emergence of irregularities, and possible manipulation of the vote results. Simple mistakes like registered voters reaching 153 million in the House server are indicators of such probable errors.

5. NO AUDIT WAS DONE ON THE AES PRIOR TO THE ELECTIONS. THERE WAS ONLY A MANDATED RANDOM MANUAL AUDIT THAT, UP TO THIS WRITING, HAS NOT BEEN COMPLETED.

RA 9369 Sec. 24 Random Manual Audit states "Where the AES is used, there shall be a random manual audit in one precinct per congressional district randomly chosen by the Commission in each province and city. Any difference between the automated and manual count will result in the determination of root cause and initiate a manual count for those precincts affected by the computer or procedural error."

A Random Manual Audit (RMA) was conducted for 5 precincts for each congressional district or a total of 1,145 of the 76,340 precincts nationwide.

The RMA precincts were raffled 12 noon of election day but the choice of the RMA precincts was made public only after the close of voting. As observed in Pampanga, the RMA in one precinct in Telabastagan was started at 8pm election day and the results were not disclosed to the observers.

The results of 30 RMA precincts were released and announced as of 15 May 2010. Last 20 May, Comelec announced results of about 300 RMA precincts were completed with few discrepancies.

PPCRV and Comelec announced some .07% discrepancies in about 400 ERs audited as of 21 May. No target completion was announced.

This should be compared to the Bid Bulletin Specifications "Component 1B- PCOS Machine -

10. The system shall count the voter’s vote as marked on the ballot with an accuracy rating of at least 99.995 %."

If in 400 ERs audited, .07% discrepancy is noted, how much more discrepancy can be expected for the rest of the 76,340 ERs?

6. SEVERAL VOTER AND SECURITY FEATURES WERE DISABLED PRIOR TO THE ELECTIONS.

5.1 RA 9369, SEC. 7. requires "Minimum System Capabilities ... (e) Provision for voter verified paper audit trail;" so the voter can verify whether his votes were the same as those read and counted by the PCOS machine. The AES disabled this feature. The voter was only notified that his vote was read through the word "CONGRATULATIONS" shown in the PCOS LCD.

5.2 The same section requires "(k) Data retention provision;"

A memory card and Compact Flash Card designed to maintain the copy of the vote data and precinct, candidates’ data per PCOS.

Comelec was reported to have started destroying the CFC cards 15 May.

5.3 The AES disabled the Ultra Violet scanning capability (to detect fake and unauthorized ballots) of the PCOS when Comelec discovered that the ink used in printing the ballots were not sufficiently dense to be read by this UV scanner.

Instead, Comelec procured 76,340 UV handheld scanners to take the PCOS UV feature. However, during the elections, the UV lamps were not used.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS:

There has been a noticeable improvement in the peace and order aspects of the elections compared to past national elections. There was initial satisfaction with the early voting results. BUT later events put to question the authenticity, integrity, confidentiality, veracity and accuracy of the vote counts in the ERs. The dark cloud rose from disabling critical, legally specified security features, particularly relating to the digital signatures. Thus, no one (both perceived winners and losers) can be sure whether the vote results are true and correct, and reflect the real will of the Filipino people.

Accordingly, the Election Observers Team of Global Filipino Nation challenges the legitimacy of the election results.

To resolve this very critical issue, GFN recommends the following:

1. In the short-term, impound PCOS machines, the memory and CF cards, and perform forensics on these using the actual ballots.

2. Comelec would promptly comply with Supreme Court directing the Comelec to make public the documents requested by Petitioner about Comelec's preparation and compliance with the requirements of the law.

3. An independent, non-partisan qualified party would conduct a full-blown audit of the Automated System (including recommended improvements to include automated registration, purging of voters lists, precinct mapping, and Internet Voting) as inputs to the Advisory Council. The audit should cover:

a. Compliance with RA9369 and other related legal issuances covering national and local elections;

b. Compliance with the Terms of Reference and Project Specifications of the Bid;

c. Reasonableness of Pricing and Expenses involved in the Project vs. Contract, and approved changes;

d. Evaluation of the Technology used;

e. Evaluation of Internal Controls of the System; and

f. Evaluation of Performance by Comelec and Smartmatic management and project staff.

4. With the lessons learned in the automation of 2010, the following projects should be pursued in time for the 2013 elections:

a. As a priority, complete the computerization of the Automated Fingerprint Information System (AFIS), started by Comelec several years ago, to complete and purge the Registered Voters List.

b. Complete the computerization of the Voters Registration Information System (VRIS) and that of the Project of Precincts (POP) in order to prevent disenfranchisement, "flying and ghost" voters, and "ghost" precincts.

c. Finalize the amendments and corresponding Implementation Rules and Regulations for RA 9369.

GLOBAL FILIPINO NATION is a non-partisan international organization of offshore and onshore Filipinos in 30 countries committed to "Building the Global Filipino Nation for Good Governance." It has been active for more than eight years in major governance issues such as The Overseas Absentee Voting Law, the Dual Citizenship Law, economic initiatives, and social issues and programs for migrant workers.

GFN 2010 ELECTIONS OBSERVERS TEAM

The GFN Team covered municipalities and cities in Pampanga, Quezon and Iloilo.

1. Victor S. Barrios is an international banker and economist. He has served as Sr. Adviser to initiatives of multilateral financial institutions in over a dozen countries in Eastern Europe and Asia. He is a Convenor of Global Filipino Nation.

2. Jun S. Aguilar, an OFW entrepreneur, is an engineer by profession who has served various international companies in the Middle East for 13 years. He is CEO-President FMW Group Holdings Inc., Chair of the Filipino Migrant Workers Group and Convenor of Global Filipino Nation.

3. Theodore B. M. Aquino, a California Registered Civil Engineer and a Global Filipino Nation Convenor, is a strong advocate for Filipino Dual Citizenship rights and good governance. He has his own consulting engineering practice in California and in several occasions provided pro bono consulting services to the Republic of the Philippines through the UNDP TOKTEN (Transfer of Knowledge Through Expatriate Nationals) Programme.

4. Elsa A. Bayani served as an RN from U.K. and U.S.; Arkansas State Chair of National Federation of Filipino American Association; and TV host Fox Network Asian American Focus, Little Rock Arkansas. An advocate for children in prison, youth and the elderly, she serves as Chairman of Our Barangay Inc. to connect 42,000 barangays to the Internet and a Convenor of Global Filipino Nation.

5. Tim C. Bayani, a registered criminologist, served the Arkansas State Dept. of Correction and Phil. National Police Commission. He was the Dean of Criminology Manila College. He is a member of the FBI-Law Enforcement Executive Dev. Association.

6. Robert Ceralvo’s company provides wifi products/services to projects in the US, notably Google. He has been in the IT industry for almost thirty-years and founded several start-ups. He has been actively involved with IT organizations and a Global Filipino Nation Convenor. His motto is: Technology to the People.

7. Romeo Z. Cayabyab is a Sydney-based audit consultant and university lecturer specializing in treasury operations, risk management, systems and operations control. He is also the founder and publisher of the emanila.com group of websites including TheFilipinoAustralian.com.

8. Hermenegildo R. Estrella, Jr. is a Management Systems Advisor for public and private consulting projects. He held senior management positions in IBM Philippines, Ayala Investment and Development, and Citibank. He is currently a Board Member and Officer of My Wellness City and SIETAR Philippines. He served as the IT/Election Specialist/Consultant of the Global Filipino Nation Foreign/ Election Observers Group.

ANNEX 1. INTERIM DETAILED ASSESSMENT

This Interim Assessment of the 2010 national elections can be divided into two areas:

1. Performance of Comelec and its deputized agencies vis-a-vis their roles, and in comparison with their performances in the 2004 national and 2007 local elections.

2. Performance of Comelec's Automated Voting, Consolidating and Canvassing System (referred to as the Automated Election System or AES) procured from Smartmatic-TIM compared to the actual live System implementation, provisions of RA9369 governing such automation, System contract between Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM, System Project Management, and the System deliverables.

TABLE I. PERFORMANCE OF COMELEC AND ITS DEPUTIZED AGENCIES

CRITERIA	ACTUAL 2010	2004 /2007	2010 ASSESSMENT
1. Comelec
1.1 Registration of Voters Purging of Lists	Regular procedures with automated registration using biometrics. Comelec claims purging of some 70,000 of voters in current voter list	Regular procedures with automated registration using biometrics. Comelec claims purging of a similar number of voters in that year's voter list	No significant improvement vs. 2004/2007
1.2 Voter Verification / Checking of Names in Comelec Lists and Precinct Assignments	Voters Lists were posted on the walls outside the clustered precincts (several established precincts into one clustered precinct for a maximum of 1000 registered voters) only on voting day. Precinct assignments were mailed to individual voters by barangay (but mostly received during voting day only) Comelec website provides finder capability for precinct assignment per voter.	Voters lists were posted on the walls outside of each established precinct (up to 300 voters per precinct) prior to the voting day. No mailing of precinct assignments.	Voters have great difficulty in locating and identifying their clustered precincts. Long queues developed with voters waiting several hours before voting. The estimated number of disenfranchised voters in the election may range from 2 million to 8 million, according to Comelec's consultant on queue management. This number may have affected the results in the presidential, vice presidential and senatorial results.
1.3 Voting and Canvassing (please see Table II)
1.4 Release of Results (time)	80% of precinct votes reported by 13 May Several winning local officials proclaimed starting 13 May 90% reported by 17 May 9 senators proclaimed 17 May.	Voting results completed after more than a month	Faster results at precinct and municipal/city level than 2004/2007
1.5 Accuracy of Results	Most of declared winners follow the general trend of pre and post election surveys. Contract specified 99.99% accuracy. Two days after elections, several incidents of potential fraud and irregularities were reported, documented and protests filed (starting 17 May)	2004 national results questioned with investigations ending up with "Hello Garci" investigations in 2005 to 2006. (No resolution yet.) 2007 (12^th position) senatorial results questioned and pending resolution.	In suspense following announcement of Random Manual Audits and resolution of filed cases. With the assessments in Table 2, and awaiting a full blown audit, this criterion awaits resolution.

2. Department of Education
2.1 Performance as Board of Election Inspectors	Performed their assigned jobs despite procedural difficulties and long voter queues to serve	Performed their assigned jobs despite incidents of violence and related electoral pressures	BEIs have shown their best under pressure

3. Philippine National Police
3.1 Maintenance of Peace and Order	Very few incidents of reported electoral violence.	Has a high level of reported of electoral related incidents, especially in Mindanao in the 2007 elections	More peaceful and orderly than 2004/2007

4. Armed Forces of the Philippines
4.1 Maintenance of Peace and Order	No reported incidents
4.2 Involvement in the elections	No reported involvement in election fraud.	Claimed involvement in 2004 elections,	Better performance in 2010

TABLE II. PERFORMANCE OF THE COMELEC AES

MAJOR CRITERIA	REQUIREMENT	COMELEC PERFORMANCE	ASSESSMENT
1. Republic Act 9369
1.1 Sec 3 and 5. IT-capable person	Trained and certified by DOST; at least one member of the BEI, and to assist the BOC	In the observed Pampanga voting centers, only one IT person (no certification shown) covered one voting center consisting of several clustered precincts
1.2 Sec 6. Use of AES	"for the regular national and local election, which shall be held immediately after effectivity of this Act, the AES shall be used in at least two highly urbanized cities and two provinces each in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao ..." "In succeeding regular national or local elections, the AES shall be implemented nationwide."	There was no use of the AES contracted in July 2009 in two urbanized cities and two provinces each in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The AES was IMPLEMENTED LIVE NATIONWIDE in the 2010 elections.	This is dangerous as Comelec's non compliance means an untested and unaudited system will be implemented LIVE. May lead to unforeseen difficulties and erroneous results.
1.3 Sec 7. Minimum System Capabilities	(a) Adequate security against unauthorized access (b) Accuracy in recording and reading of votes as well as in the tabulation, consolidation/canvassing, electronic transmission, and storage of results; (c) Error recovery in case of non-catastrophic failure of device; (d) System integrity which ensures physical stability and functioning of the vote recording and counting process ; (e) Provision for voter verified paper audit trail; (f) System auditability which provides supporting documentation for verifying the correctness of reported election results; (g) An election management system for preparing ballots and programs for use in the casting and counting of votes and to consolidate, report and display election result in the shortest time possible; (h) Accessibility to illiterates and disabled voters; (i) Vote tabulating program for election, referendum or plebiscite; (j) Accurate ballot counters; (k) Data retention provision; (l) Provide for the safekeeping, storing and archiving of physical or paper resource used in the election process; (m) Utilize or generate official ballots as herein defined; (n) Provide the voter a system of verification to find out whether or not the machine has registered his choice; and (o) Configure access control for sensitive system data and function. "In the procurement of this system, the Commission shall develop and adopt an evaluation system to ascertain that the above minimum system capabilities are met. This evaluation system shall be developed with the assistance of an advisory council."	Passwords for the BEI were provided. No observed passwords for the IT personnel. Digital signatures were required but within two months before the elections, these were not used. Use of encryption in transmission announced but an incompletely secure transmission scheme is made available, but not utilized in the elections. UV reading by PCOS earlier provided but later was disabled when ink density of the ballot was found inadequate. An external, handheld UV lamp was procured to check on the authenticity of a ballot. Tests using 10 sample ballots were made after the May 3 erroneous Compact Flash cards (CFC) field tests. Not all tests in 76,340 precincts where supposedly all CFC were reconfigured and replaced, were completed and announced. Transmission tests were not conducted as stated by Provincial Election Supervisor, Regional Election Officer and his Deputy. Back up PCOS machines are used within a province. Only a UPS is provided to ensure the PCOS will not lose power. Voter only notified in the PCOS screen that his vote is read. The announced capability for the voter to verify that his vote choices were recorded by the PCOS was disabled. Only the word "CONGRATULATIONS" was shown in the PCOS LCD. NO VOTE RECEIPT WAS PROVIDED FOR. Only a printed Election Return tape was prepared after the counting. A Random Manual Audit was conducted for 5 precincts for each congressional district or a total of 1,145 of the 76,340 precincts nationwide. An Election Management System module was provided. No prior tests were made instead implemented LIVE immediately. No specific tests were made. Election Return tapes were printed out (see item f above) Tested under item b above. A memory card and CFC card designed to maintain the copy of the vote data and precinct, candidates’ data per PCOS. Comelec provided facilities for storing their copies of the paper tapes, and the used ballots, unused ballots and other paper paraphernalia. Printed official ballots at the National Printing Office. Same as item e above. See item a above. An evaluation system was provided but not announced nor released.	This is leading to a Legal standoff as to the authenticity, reliability and accuracy of the vote results. The UV lamps were not provided nor used in the Pampanga precincts. There were reports that stated some ERs contain votes of 10 voters, meaning that the votes transmitted were the test votes. 30 copies of the ER were printed for each precinct and distributed to authorized parties. The results of 30 RMA precincts were released and announced as of 15 May 2010. Last 20 May, Comelec announced results of about 300 RMA precincts were completed with few discrepancies. Comelec was reported to have started destroying the CFC cards 15 May.
1.4 Sec 8. Communication Channels for Electronic Transmissions	all electronic transmissions by and among the EAS and its related components shall utilize secure communication channels ... to ensure authentication and integrity of transmission."	4,690 polling centers have no cell phone signal from telecommunication firms affecting about 5 million registered voters. 5,600 Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) equipment and 680 Very Small Aperture Terminals have been assigned to these areas. See item 1.3 b above. No specific authentication and integrity check were released and announced regarding the public telecom facilities and facilities utilized. Only 40,000 modems were contracted to allow transmissions.	No announced results of testing these facilities. Slowdown in transmission was noticed three days after elections. As observed in Pampanga, there was only one modem used by several precincts in a voting center, thus delaying transmission. Transmission in observed precincts in Pampanga took about 30 minutes per ER.
1.5 Sec 9. Technical Evaluation Committee	The Committee shall certify, through an established international certification entity to be chosen by the Commission from the recommendations of the Advisory Council, not later than three months before the date of the electoral exercises, categorically stating that the AES, including its hardware and software components, is operating properly, securely, and accurately, in accordance with the provisions of this Act based, among others, on the following documented results: 1. The successful conduct of a field testing process followed by a mock election event in one or more cities/municipalities; 2. The successful completion of audit on the accuracy, functionally and security controls of the AES software; 3. The successful completion of a source code review; 4. A certification that the source code is kept in escrow with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas; 5. A certification that the source code reviewed is one and the same as that used by the equipment; and 6. The development, provisioning, and operationalization of a continuity plan to cover risks to the AES at all points in the process such that a failure of elections, whether at voting, counting or consolidation, may be avoided. "If the Commission decides to proceed with the use of the AES without the Committee's certification, it must submit its reason in writing, to the Oversight Committee , no less than thirty (30) days prior to the electoral exercise where the AES will be used.	Comelec commissioned SysTest Lab of the USA to review the source code. Comelec also opened up to political and other interested parties the review of the source codes. The source code copy was put in escrow at the Central Bank. Bid Specifications "Annex E" stated that "There shall be as many field tests as may be necessary until the requirements for the tests have been satisfied provided that the tests shall not go beyond December 5, 2009. All systems shall be tested on site, i.e. in selected locations nationwide covering different test voting centers, test consolidation sites, and test canvassing sites. The test shall also include live transmission of precinct results. COMELEC personnel shall operate all systems in the test. No certification issued. See above comment re SysTest. Announcement made. No certification announced. No announcement. No announcement.	SysTest Lab submitted a report with some 4,000 comments for action by Comelec. No official announcement by Comelec whether these SysTest comments were addressed. The lack of transparency by the Comelec led the Supreme Court to order Comelec to produce the relevant documentation on these items. This action of Comelec led to suspicions and worries by citizen watchdogs that insufficient testing and checking are happening, that may lead to irregularities and possibly manipulation of the vote results. Tests were conducted only at precinct level.
1.6 Sec 10. Procurement of Equipment and Materials	With respect to the May 10, 2010 election and succeeding electoral exercises, the system procured must have demonstrated capability and been successfully used in a prior electoral exercise here or board. Participation in the 2007 pilot exercise shall not be conclusive of the system's fitness.	The PCOS machine was not used in the ARMM and 2007 elections. In ARMM, two voting machines, the DRE and CCOS were used by two different contractors.
1.7 Sec 11. Continuity Plan	Activation of such continuity and contingency measures shall be undertaken in the presence of representatives of political parties and citizen's arm of the Commission who shall be notified by the election officer of such activation. "All political parties and party-lists shall be furnished copies of said continuity plan at their official addresses as submitted to the Commission. The list shall be published in at least two newspaper of national of circulation and shall be posted at the website of the Commission at least fifteen (15) days prior to the electoral activity concerned."	Not done. Although a Comelec Resolution was issued to cover these. Not know whether these were furnished. No copy published.
1.8 Sec 12. "Examination and Testing of Equipment or Device of the AES and Opening of the Source Code for Review"	The Commission shall allow the political parties and candidates or their representatives, citizens' arm or their representatives to examine and test. "The equipment or device to be used in the voting and counting on the day of the electoral exercise, before voting start. Test ballots and test forms shall be provided by the Commission. "Immediately after the examination and testing of the equipment or device, parties and candidates or their representatives, citizen's arms or their representatives, may submit a written comment to the election officer who shall immediately transmit it to the Commission for appropriate action. "The election officer shall keep minutes of the testing, a copy of which shall be submitted to the Commission together with the minute of voting." "Once an AES technology is selected for implementation, the Commission shall promptly make the source code of that technology available and open to any interested political party or groups which may conduct their own review thereof."	No test by the parties were made prior to the voting on election day. The only test made was after the reconfiguration of the CFCs using 10 sample ballots. No such minutes were made.
1.9 Sec 13. Official Ballot	The Commission shall prescribe the format of the electronic display and/or the size and form of the official ballot, which shall contain the titles of the position to be filled and/or the proposition to be voted upon in an initiative, referendum or plebiscite.	Comelec first made the list of candidates on a vertical list format but later shifted to a horizontal list per position.
1.10 Sec 17. Notice of Designation of Counting Centers	The election officer shall post prominently in his/her office, in the bulletin boards at the city/municipal hall and in three other conspicuous places in the city/municipality, the notice on the designated counting center(s) for at least three weeks prior to election day. The notice shall specify the precincts covered by each counting center and the number of registered voters in each of said precincts . The election officer shall also furnish a copy of the notice to the headquarters or official address of the political parties or independent candidates within the same period. The election officer shall post in the Commission website concerned the said notice and publish the notice in the local newspaper. Where the polling place or voting center is also the designated counting center, such information shall be contained in the notice.	No such lists were posted in the city/municipal halls, nor provided the political parties. Such lists were not also posted in the Comelec website nor published in the local newspapers.
1.11 Sec 18 and 19 Election returns	The Commission shall prescribe the manner and procedure of counting the votes under the automated system: Provided, that apart from the electronically stored result, thirty (30) copies of the election return are printed."	Comelec provided these in the BEI General Instructions; and printed 30 copies of the ERs.	Some protestors have shown ERs with "Citibank Mastercard" marks and had prior dates to elections, and several post dates marked.
A. Distribution of ER copies	(as above)	(as above)
B. Electronic Transmission	"Within one hour after the printing of the election returns, the chairman of the board of election inspectors or any official authorized by the Commission shall, in the presence of watchers and representatives of the accredited citizens' arm, political parties/candidates, if any, electronically transmit the precinct results to the respective levels of board of canvassers, to the dominant majority and minority party, to the accredited citizen's arm, and to the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP). "The election results at the city/municipality canvassing centers shall be transmitted in the same manner by the election officer or any official authorized by the commission to the district or provincial canvassing centers. "The election returns transmitted electronically and digitally signed shall be considered as official election results and shall be used as the basis for the canvassing of votes and the proclamation of a candidate."	The BEI, in the observed voting centers of Pampanga, transmitted the vote results to the Comelec server, the PPCRV and KBP. The canvassed election results were transmitted to the Comelec server.	This transmission step of precinct to Comelec Server was not provided for by RA 9369. The problem would be that anyone in control of the Comelec Server would already know the trend of the voting prior to the precinct results going to the municipal/city as mandated. This is now the legal subject in the National Canvassing as digital signatures as required by RA 9369 were not purposely utilized upon orders of the Comelec.
1.12 Sec. 20 Canvassing by Provincial, City, District and Municipal Boards of Canvassers	"Within one hour after the canvassing, the Chairman of the district or provincial Board of Canvassers or the city board of canvassers of those cities which comprise one or more legislative districts shall electronically transmit the certificate of canvass to the commission sitting as the national board of canvassers for senators and party-list representatives and to the Congress as the National Board of Canvassers for the president and vice president, directed to the President of the Senate. "The Commission shall adopt adequate and effective measures to preserve the integrity of the certificates of canvass transmitted electronically and the results in the storage devices at the various levels of the boards of canvassers. "The certificates of canvass transmitted electronically and digitally signed shall be considered as official election results and shall be used as the basis for the proclamation of a winning candidate."	The canvassed election results were transmitted first to the Comelec server, then to the various canvassing centers. No such measures were released nor announced. Comelec Resolution 8786 instructed the BEIs not to indicate their digital signatures for the transmission.	In the first hours of canvassing in the City of San Fernando, what was shown in the projected canvass, after the election, were only the number of precincts reporting without vote results. See 1.11 B above assessment.
1.13 Sec. 24 Random Manual Audit	Where the AES is used, there shall be a random manual audit in one precinct per congressional district randomly chosen by the Commission in each province and city. Any difference between the automated and manual count will result in the determination of root cause and initiate a manual count for those precincts affected by the computer or procedural error."	Same as item 1.3 f above. The RMA precincts were raffled 12 noon of election day. As observed in Pampanga, the RMA in one precinct in Telabastagan was started at 8pm election day.	Same as item 1.3 f above. PPCRV and Comelec announced some .07% discrepancies in about 400 ERs audited as of 21 May. No target completion was announced.
1.14 Sec. 26 Stakeholder education and training	The Commission shall, not later than six months before the actual automated election exercise, undertake a widespread stakeholder education and training program, through newspaper of general circulation, radio, television and other media forms, as well as through seminars, symposia, fora and other nontraditional means, to educate the public and fully inform the electorate about the AES and inculcate values on honest, peaceful, orderly and informed elections.	Comelec initiated the stakeholder education and training program together with concerned peoples' groups and organizations through print, radio and TV media.
1.15 Sec. 30 Rules and Regulations	The Commission shall promulgate rules and regulation for the implementation and enforcement of this Act.	No implementing rules and regulations were provided for the implementation and enforcement of this Act.

2. Contract Between Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM
2.1 Compliance to RA9369 provisions		Contract indicated provisions and attachments that comply with RA 9369, the Terms of Reference and Project Specifications of the Bid.	As stated in the various items in this column, there were many required specifications that were disregarded, disabled and not provided for in the actual implementation.
2.2 Reasonableness of Pricing	Total Smartmatic Contract is P7,191.4 million 10%: Project Initialization, Set up Project Management Team and Project Systems including all SW licenses and firmware- P719 million 5%: Delivery of Development Set (20 PCOS units)- P359 million 5%: Report on Transmission and Logistics- P359 million 5%: Delivery of Functional System and Software- P359 million Project Management- P99.9 million 82,200 PCOS machines (lease) – P3,346 million Total software – P42 million Electronic Transmission – P199.9 m Logistics – P916 million	Comelec agreed to all these pricing provisions.	Although this pricing is below the P11,230 million budget, there are certain items that are way above industry price levels. This will be difficult to justify considering it is only initialization and set-up, and considering the main software is only P42 million. The cost of 20 PCOS units is about P1.0 million. The balance of P358 million would be difficult to justify. The actual services and equipment for transmission is only P199.9 million, logistics is P916 m, so it would again be difficult to justify such as report. The Project is for a year, and certainly this amount is extravagant as no such Project team would justify such an amount for their services. One PCOS is leased for P45,419, which is almost the purchase price of one available in the market, further should be lower as a big volume is ordered.
2.3 Compliance to contract provisions	See items 3 and 4 below.	See items 3 and 4 below.	See items 3 and 4 below.
3. Project Management
3.1 Project Manager	Requirement for the Project Manager: · Minimum fifteen (15) years relevant IT experience; · At least ten (10) years experience in managing large-scale multi-site IT development and implementation projects involving relational databases and wide area networks; · With actual experience in assisting in the bid processes of any government agency following RA 9184 – Philippine government procurement rules, regulations and processes	No Project Manager of Smartmatic has been identified, shown nor quoted during the entire election period, up to the present.	Questions arising from the IT community have been raised whether the Smartmatic and Comelec Project Managers are really qualified and experienced to perform the required work, as shown by project delays and non-compliance to key and critical aspects of the automation.
3.2 Completion of planned activities	A time schedule was posted in the Comelec website.	There had been delays in the deliveries of the PCOS machines and completion of activities. Light penalties were charged to Smartmatic.	These delays led to insufficient testing, to note particularly the one that led to the Monday May 3 episode that rushed the Final Testing and Sealing of the PCOS machines and reconfigured CF cards. Such delays are now being considered as critical to the resolution of protests regarding irregularities found out in the voting results.
4. Deliverables
4.1 Compliance to quality of project specifications	Several certifications were required and specified.	Only the certification by SysTest was announced but not published.	Lack of transparency by Comelec and Smartmatic on these requirements puts to doubt the test quality and implementation results of the whole system.
4.2 Adherence to timetables	See item 3.2 above	See item 3.2 above	See item 3.2 above
Canvass and proclamation of winners	As provided for in the Project Timetable: Finish by 05.13.10		Canvass about 90% by 17 May Proclamation of 9 of 12 senators made 17 May.

Justice Renato Corona

2010-05-19T18:26:00.000+08:00

STATEMENT OF FORMER SENIOR GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS (FSGO)

19 May 2010

JUSTICE CORONA’S APPOINTMENT IS UNETHICAL

So much has been said to justify the appointment of Justice Renato Corona as lawful, but Malacañang’s apologists have completely missed the point. What is legal is not necessarily ethical.

Arroyo’s recent appointment of Justice Corona as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court smacks of her lack of decency and utter disregard for the results of the successful national elections. Despite repeated calls from various sectors for her to abstain from making a midnight appointment and to allow the next administration to select one of the most important posts in government, Arroyo insisted on making the appointment which has resulted in:

More divisiveness in a nation that is already wracked by conflict and dissent and needs to build UNITY;
Lack of respect for the incoming President whom the people have decided should have the right to make the appointment;
The erosion of the Supreme Court’s credibility as an institution not beholden to any President in cases where there are existing jurisprudence, tradition and overwhelming public opinion;
Increased suspicion that Arroyo’s action is meant to shield her from being made accountable for the excesses of her administration.

Arroyo’s action has also exposed Justice Corona to unnecessary and unfair media exposure, because he has the credentials for the job and would have been a strong candidate anyway for the post of Chief Justice, as the JBC attested.

We, Former Senior Government Officials (FSGO), say, “ENOUGH!” For nine long years we have seen the steady decline of the pillars of good governance in our society. In many instances, amidst howls of protest, we have seen the Arroyo administration carry on without regard for the will of the people. Legality was the oft-repeated excuse, but we ask: What about ethical behavior? What about good governance? What about the interests of the country?

For Reference:

Vicente Paterno
Former Minister of Industry
Mobiline: 0917 795 7974

Vitaliano Nañagas
Former Chair, Development Bank of the Philippines
Mobiline: 0929 685 3840

Narzalina Lim
Former Secretary, Department of Tourism
Mobiline: 0917 524 7649

Isagani Cruz
Former Undersecretary, Department of Education
Mobiline: 0917 855 3350

Launch of a Festschrift

2010-04-13T05:55:00.003+08:00

You are invited to the launch of Inter/Sections: Isagani R. Cruz and Friends, edited by David Jonathan Y. Bayot (published by Anvil Publishing for De La Salle University), at Powerbooks, Greenbelt, Makati, Philippines, on 15 April, Thursday, 5 to 6 p.m. Contributors to the book are: Gayatri Spivak, Catherine Belsey, Marjorie Perloff, Christopher Norris, E. San Juan Jr., Virgilio S. Almario, Alfred A. Yuson, Gemino H. Abad, Caroline Hau, Frank G. Rivera, Kathryn VanSpanckeren, Sharon Delmendo, Marilyn Atlas, Paulino Lim Jr., Cirilo F. Bautista, Soledad S. Reyes, Ma. Lourdes S. Bautista, Edna Z. Manlapaz, Tereso S. Tullao Jr., Rolando B. Tolentino, Rosario Cruz Lucero, Vicente Garcia Groyon, Shirley Lua, Clodualdo del Mundo Jr., Ma. Lourdes Jacob, Gerardo Z. Torres, Edwina Carreon, Dinah Roma Sianturi, Ronald Baytan, Genevieve L. Asenjo, and Jose Wendell Capili. The book will be relaunched in Los Angeles, California, USA, on 30 April, 6-8 p.m. (venue TBA), after a lecture by Dr. Cruz at UCLA.

Cover of Festschrift to be launched on 15 April in Makati

2010-04-04T11:39:00.000+08:00

Economists in support of Noynoy Aquino

2010-04-02T05:56:00.000+08:00

The Leader We Need

We believe the failure of governance is the main obstacle to the country’s long-run economic growth and ability to respond to the people’s most urgent needs.

The failure of governance – the inability to enforce an adherence to the demands of law and the lack of will to uphold the people’s lawful demands – is everywhere evident. It is seen, among others, in unchecked grand corruption, the cynical and self-serving nature of many public appointments, the disregard for the letter and the spirit of constitutional rule, the failure to control crime and violence from private armed groups, and the pervasive culture of arrogance and impunity displayed by many who hold public office.

Of all these, however, the spread of large-scale corruption has had the most pernicious and far-reaching economic consequences. Corruption has sapped the government’s ability to collect the proper taxes, franchises, and royalties. It has distorted government’s spending priorities, perverted our statutes and regulatory decisions to favor vested interests, and dispensed privileges to the undeserving but well-connected. As a result, neither government nor private business has invested anywhere near sufficient amounts in physical infrastructure, research, education, and health-care in order to create jobs and to reduce poverty. Government fails to invest for lack of resources and will. Private businesses – both foreign and Filipino – fail to invest for lack of trust that the rules will be fairly and predictably applied.

Low growth, high poverty, big public deficits, and deep public cynicism are the bitter fruits of failed governance and weakened institutions.

The call for a higher standard of public ethics, therefore, is not some abstract moral preference – it is an imperative for survival and development.

This year’s presidential election can be a defining moment in our history, our economy, and our daily lives if our people can rally around a program to sweep away years of corruption, wasteful spending, patronage, and mismanagement under an administration that has shown itself tolerant of such practices.

We believe that among the presidential candidates, Senator Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III represents the best hope for such a change. Beyond mere words, his character and record speak of a steadfast dedication to effective, honest, and accountable leadership. He is dedicated to positively transforming the way we see and deal with government. From creating jobs to reducing the gap between the rich and poor; from protecting Filipinos working abroad to raising the country’s profile as a major investment area for the world; from working for lasting peace to firmly enforcing the law, Senator Aquino’s vision of governance based on ethical principles, a firm and fair application of the law, and a responsiveness to the people’s priorities is what our polity and economy urgently need.

It is time the Philippines once more had a leader who embodies the spirit of heroism and integrity we share as Filipinos. We are convinced that Sen. Noynoy Aquino is that leader.

Signatories of the Statement from the Economic Agenda Team of Noynoy Aquino:

Michael Alba, former Dean, College of Economics and Business, De La Salle University (michael.alba@gmail.com)

Fernando Aldaba, former Chairperson, Department of Economics, Ateneo de Manila University (naldaba@gmail.com)

Filomeno Sta. Ana III, National Coordinator, Action for Economic Reforms (filomenoiii@yahoo.com)

List of economists who support the statement (NCR):

1. Cayetano Paderanga Ph.D.

2. Raul Fabella Ph.D.

3. Mryna Austria Ph.D.

4. Edita Tan Ph.D.

5. Vicente Paqueo Ph.D.

6. Teresa Jayme-Ho Ph.D.

7. Germelino Bautista Ph.D.

8. Ma. Socorro Gochoco-Bautista Ph.D.

9. Gilberto Llanto Ph.D.

10. Erlinda Medalla Ph.D.

11. Gwedolyn Tecson Ph.D.

12. Ernesto Pernia Ph.D.

13. Leonardo Lanzona Jr. Ph.D.

14. Fidelina Natividad Carlos Ph.D.

15. Carlos Bautista Ph.D.

16. Edsel Beja, Jr. Ph.D.

17. Emmanuel Esguerra Ph. D

18. Ruperto Majuca Ph.D.

19. Melanie Milo Ph.D.

20. Jose Ramon Albert Ph.D.

21. Rhoelano Briones Ph.D.

22. Rafaelita M. Aldaba Ph.D.

23. Rosalina Tan Ph.D.
24. Danilo

Israel

Ph.D.

25. Rouselle Lavado Ph.D.

26. Gerardo Largoza Ph.D.

27. Stella Quimbo Ph.D.

28. Ma. Joy Abrenica Ph.D.

29. Eduardo Gonzales Ph.D.

30. Danilo Venida

31. Allan Borreo

32. Alexander Narciso

33. Meldin Al. G. Roy
34. Jessica Cantos-Reyes

35. Joseph Francia

36. Emilio Neri Jr.

37. Cristina Bautista
38. Philip Arnold Tuano
39. Romelia Neri

40. Reuel Hermoso
41. Joselito Sescon
42. Marilou Perez

43. Paolo Jose Mutuc

44. Sarah Grace See

45. Ramon Fernan

46. Ernest Leung

Failure of elections in the Philippines

2010-03-29T03:52:00.000+08:00

Briefer on the Poll Automation Project

PREPARED BY THE CITIZENS’ ALLIANCE AGAINST ELECTORAL FRAUD AND FAILURE OF ELECTIONS (CAAEF-FAEL)

On May 10, 2010, about fifty million Filipino voters will troop to 76,000 clustered polling precincts nationwide to cast their ballots in the first ever fully automated presidential elections in Philippine history. Various political parties, candidates, and observers have expressed the collective fear and anxiety that a major disruption of the fully automated presidential polls could lead to a failure of elections, triggering a constitutional crisis that could have far-reaching implications to the nation’s political stability.

All those doomsday scenarios have sufficient bases.

The full automation of the electoral process is being led by the watchdog Commission on Elections (Comelec), which has gained infamy of international proportions for official incompetence, corruption, fraud, and mismanagement of previous elections. Comelec lacks credibility. It still suffers from the institutional damage that has been triggered by alleged involvement of its key officials in fraudulent activities, including the “Hello Garci” controversy and the ZTE/NBN scandal.

Comelec has awarded a contract to implement the P7.2 billion poll automation project to the consortium of Smartmatic Corp., a Venezuelan firm that has a dubious track record on poll automation, and Total Information Management (TIM), its local partner. Quoting losing bidders and other quarters, press reports have raised serious questions about Smartmatic’s equity ownership and its relationship with the Hugo Chavez government, which allegedly rigged elections in Venezuela.

The outsourcing of the nation’s electoral process to a foreign firm is causing widespread anxiety among concerned citizens and various sectors, including the Church and civil society. It is like outsourcing national sovereignty to a foreign firm. It has been established too that the poll automation project contains too many potential human, procedural and technical issues that could lead to either partial or total failure of elections.

In its assessment of the poll automation project, Pacific Strategies & Assessment, a foreign consulting firm that provides political risk assessment, said: “There is no official record of any country in the world transitioning completely from a pure manual to full automated elections system in one electoral exercise.”

CHEATING INSTITUTION

As a constitutional quasi-judicial body, Comelec has two mandates: operations, which is to oversee, conduct, and assure orderly, peaceful, free, and honest elections, and adjudication, which is the settlement of electoral disputes.

Comelec’s tainted reputation and history has serious repercussion on critical sectors, which believe that Comelec has not been fair in the conduct of its mandates. They claimed that a major reason why the country is a soft state is the presence of a weak and corrupt Comelec.

It is height of irony or even tragedy that the poll automation project, which is envisioned to hasten the delivery of election results to prevent massive cheating, is being spearheaded by an institution with questionable integrity and tainted reputation. It is no secret that it is not only losing candidates, who bribe high ranking Comelec officials, but also winning candidates, who do it mainly to protect their votes and assure victory.

The poll automation project does not motivate President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to pursue measures to complement it. As the appointing power, the President has named new commissioners, who are either in the twilight of their careers or who are unskilled in poll automation. While the new commissioners could contribute in the adjudication of electoral disputes due to their legal background, they have limited knowledge on the operational aspects of the polls.

QUESTIONABLE TANDEM

The Smartmatic-TIM consortium, meanwhile, raises concern on its capacity to implement without major hitches the poll automation project. This has basis since days after Comelec awarded the contract to Smarmatic-TIM consortium, TIM attempted to back out of its partnership with Smartmatic, suggesting differences with the Venezuelan firm. Only Comelec’s intercession had prevented the parting of ways of the two firms. That was after Comelec had threatened TIM officials of legal suits if ever they would back out.

Comelec’s decision to award the poll automation contract to Smartmatic-TIM has been fraught with many questions and controversies. The issues pertain to transparency and Smartmatic’s qualification to handle the poll automation project. For instance, a controversy revolves on Smartmatic’s failure to provide Comelec with what were described “authentic and original” copies of previous contracts to show its competence to handle automated elections of similar scope and magnitude as the Philippines’s.

Also, Comelec awarded the contract to Smartmatic-TIM consortium in what could be said a “chaotic” bidding process and on the basis of what has been described as “outrageously low bid” of P7.2 billion, which was P4 billion lower than the Comelec’s publicized budget for the poll automation project.

Pacific Strategies & Assessments said: “Many knowledgeable observers found the flawed Comelec process to be tantamount to a conspiracy of obfuscation couched in highly technical language that prevented most laymen from fully grasping the nuances of the process or its many shortcomings and failures.”

Lately, the consortium was reported to have beset with dissension as Smartmatic has assumed practically all the major aspects of the poll automation project relegating TIM to the sideline. This has serious legal implications because the poll automation law mandates that only private firms with at least 60 percent local equity could automate the elections. The two firms have been denying any serious disagreement between them. Smartmatic said TIM has been given weekly briefings.

Also, Comelec was reported to have practically surrendered direct supervision and effective control over the poll automation project, allowing Smartmatic to do almost everything at will, or in its own terms. This is a violation of the poll automation law. Moreover, it raises questions of public accountability, as Smartmatic executives are believed to fly out of the coop the moment the poll automation project becomes awry and uncontrollable.

DISORGANIZED WATCHDOG SYSTEM

The Comelec-Smartmatic partnership on the poll automation project seems to thrive in an environment, where private electoral watchdog organizations are generally perceived to be weak, disorganized, or even dysfunctional. It has been widely perceived that major private watchdog organizations have remained largely uninformed on the actual mechanics of the fully automated electoral system. Except for some overnight coalitions that have sprouted lately, most private watchdog organizations have been largely unresponsive on the major issues that confront poll automation.

The failure of the National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) to get accreditation from Comelec is a case in point, indicating that Comelec is bent to marginalize private watchdog organizations so that it could operate with impunity. In fairness, Namfrel seems disoriented on its actual role in a fully automated electoral system. Since parallel counts are to become extinct or a superfluity in the next polls, Namfrel, despite urgent calls to reinvent itself, seems contented to stay on the sideline and perform no significant role on May 10.

The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), the mainstream watchdog organization that represents the conservative sector within the Roman Catholic Church, appears to have been co-opted by Comelec as indicated by its joint projects with the poll body on voters’ education. Former Ambassador Henrietta de Villa, who used to head Namfrel but left it to head what appears to be a greener pasture as the PPCRV, has taken a soft stance vis-à-vis Comelec. Anyway, they are partners. The Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) and Legal Network for Truthful Elections (Lente) are busy putting up their networks, although their stand on the poll automation project has not been aired publicly.

The more militant sector within the Church, as represented by National Secretariat for Social Action (NASSA) and a sprinkling of temporary alliances like Kontra Daya, Halalang Marangal, Compact for Peaceful and Democratic Elections (Compact), and Philippine Misereor Partnership have come out in the open to take a more adversarial stance against the poll automation project. Still, they appear to be in a minority.

Overall, the mainstream private watchdog organizations have been not confrontational when it comes to Comelec. They have adopted what seems to be a policy of collaboration, avoiding any adversarial stance on Comelec. Who will watch the watchdog amid all threats of a failure of elections is a fundamental question.

PROCESS

The automation process starts at the 76,000 polling precincts, each of which is to be equipped with precinct counting optical scan (PCOS) machines that would electronically count the votes and transmit the election results to Comelec servers in Metro Manila. Comelec has claimed the election results would be known in a day or two.

According to observers, the automation of precinct counting raises serious concern since this procedure automates the wrong process and negates transparency. Voters and party watchers have no way to determine the actual voting in each precinct, as this process effectively hides from the public the voting on precinct level and raises the specter of electronically manipulated cheating.

It has been suggested that the automation should start in the canvassing phase in the municipal and provincial levels since past elections showed that wholesale cheating actually took place in these areas. But Comelec had insisted on the automation of precinct counting, believing that it would lessen electoral protests.

Also, Comelec’s refusal for any manual or electronic audit of all cast ballots further negates any process – direct or indirect – for the public to determine precinct voting. Comelec’s focus on the counting machine as the final arbiter of the electoral contests and rejection of any human intervention in the form of any manual audit seems to be incongruous if the nation’s tradition of electoral system is to be considered.

INDEPENDENT REVIEW

Republic Act 9369, or the Automated Election System Law of 2009, mandates Comelec to conduct systems verification of the poll automation project prior to the May 10 presidential elections. But Comelec and the Smartmatic-TIM consortium have not subjected to any independent review the physical component, specifically the PCOS machines which comprise the hardware portion of the poll automation project.

The independent review assumes significance in the light of Smartmatic’s unilateral decision to transfer the manufacture of the PCOS machines to China despite its earlier announcement that they would be made in Taiwan. Smartmatic has not fully explained the transfer of their manufacture to China, fuelling speculations that tend to cast doubt on the integrity and ability of these machines to perform their designated functions.

This is an area of concern because of the crucial role the PCOS machines will perform in the next elections. Aside from doing the precinct counting and electronic transmission of these votes to Metro Manila servers for consolidation, the PCOS machines will also print copies of the election returns, some of which will be provided to various election watchdog organizations and monitors and political parties.

A systems verification – or independent review - of the hardware and the software is the key to assure the capability and integrity of the first ever fully automated presidential elections. Failure to undertake any systems verification could lead to serious allegations of electronic fraud. How Comelec will perform this systems verification within the next 60 days is another fundamental question.

DISENFRANCHISEMENT OF VOTERS

Adaptation will be a key issue to assure the success of the coming polls. But Filipino voters do not necessarily adapt to a new electoral environment since poll automation is a nascent technology in the country. If recent surveys are to be believed, three out of five Filipino voters are clueless about poll automation. Also, it seemed that Comelec’s voters’ education, which it claimed to have been conducting for the past several months, has not been reaching the people.

Hence, the massive disenfranchisement of voters is quite probable. This is tantamount to frustrating the people’s will and the essence of democracy.

Disenfranchisement is possible on three levels: ballots, machines, and voters’ list. Filipinos can be disenfranchised from voting when fake ballots find their way to polling precincts, or when some people put virus on the ballots, leading to the non-counting of votes for certain candidates. There are many ways to disenfranchise voters through the ballots and evil geniuses would certainly ply their trade to frustrate the people’s will.

It has been estimated that about 1,630 ballots will have to be printed and prepared. This is because the coming polls will include candidates down to municipal and city levels. Any misprinting or failure to include seals or marks will confuse voters and provide significant reason for electoral protests.

The counting machine is another venue for disenfranchisement. The mere failure to deliver these PCOS machines to their designated clustered polling precincts will already mean disenfranchisement of those voters assigned to those particular polling precincts. It has been estimated that the non-delivery of about 20 percent of those PCOS machines would be sufficient to alter the results of the coming elections.

The clustering of the more than 240,000 polling precincts nationwide into 76,000 polling precincts would mean integration of the voters’ list. Although Comelec has announced the purging of some 700,000 names in the voters’ list, there is no assurance that the voters’ list would have integrity. In brief, a voters’ list that lacks integrity will lead to disenfranchisement since many voters will not find their names on the list and vote accordingly.

Also, the issue of voting time could disenfranchise voters. Already, a private poll watchdog organization has claimed that based on its study, half of voters of every clustered polling precinct would not have the material time to vote. Based on what it had claimed were simulation exercises it had conducted, the watchdog organization said half of the 1,000 voters, who line up at the start of the voting time, would hardly fill up the ballot, which could be almost three feet long, until voting ends at 6 pm.

This is a claim that has been denied by Comelec, which said that each polling precinct has the material time to accommodate all voters in its list.

DELIVERY OF COUNTING MACHINES

In a recent investigative report, Newsbreak newsmagazine has said that the weakest link in the poll automation project may be in the area of logistics. The delivery of 82,000 PCOS machines nationwide poses a biggest logistical problem since “this crucial and sensitive task has been assigned to layers of subcontractors with limited track record and with no direct accountability” to Comelec.

It appeared too that the bigger firms with track records have shied away from the poll automation project largely because of financial considerations. The risks were too high, but the financial gains were small. Comelec was reported to have imposed heavy fines for failure to deliver those PCOS machines to their destinations.

According to Newsbreak: “The windows for cheating, sabotage, or failure - if any party is contemplating this - is in the delivery of the vote counting machines, from the warehouse in Laguna to various parts of the country.”

Comelec has contracted three firms for the delivery of the PCOS machines: Germalin Enterprises Inc., which will deliver in Metro Manila; Ace Logistics Inc., in the rest of Luzon; and Argo International Forwarders Inc., in the Visayas and Mindanao. The three firms confirmed that the delivery of the PCOS machines is their single biggest contract so far in their corporate histories. No competitive bidding took place as Comelec merely handpicked the three firms for lack of better options.

Newsbreak said: “Except for Germalin, which has its own trucks and will be limited to Metro Manila, these logistics firms, in turn, are contracting different warehousing and trucking services in their assigned regions, provinces, cities, and municipalities.”

The report said Comelec has yielded control and supervision over these forwarders, as their contracts are with Smartmatic and not Comelec. This has far-reaching implications because the current arrangement could make these firms vulnerable to partisan interest and even sabotage, as the report said it would only take the non-delivery of several thousands of these machines to alter the election results.

SOURCE CODE

The issue of source code has become contentious in the wake of serious allegations that the U.S.-based firm contracted by Comelec to review it has a tainted record. It has been reported that the US federal government had suspended in Oct. 2008 the accreditation of Denver-based SysTest Lab as one of five independent laboratories that could conduct testing and certification of electronic voting systems to be used in US elections.

This was after the US National Institute of Standards and Technology observed that SysTest Lab did those tests without “properly documented and validated test methods.” Also, it conducted its tests with “unqualified or untrained personnel” and made “improper assurances” to manufacturers regarding testing outcomes.

On Oct. 2009, Comelec, through Resolution No. 8677, awarded SysTest Labs, an accredited “quality assurance and software performance testing company,” a P70 million contract to conduct the testing and certification, including the legally-mandated source code review, of the automated election system. The source code review is critical because this is the way to assure the public that the PCOS machines will accurately the actual votes cast by voters. The source code contains the human-readable instructions that make up any software program.

According to reports, Smartmatic-TIM acquired an exclusive license to use the source code owned by a Canadian firm, Dominion, for use in the presidential elections. Although the contract between Smartmatic and Dominion has not been publicly divulged, Smartmatic rolled out a variation of Dominions ImageCast technology, which was customized to fit into Comelec’s requirements. Due to changes, Smartmatic later changed the system’s name to SAES1800.

On Oct. 13, 2009, Comelec turned over the review of the source code to SysTest Labs, which is one of the several certification labs or independent testing authorities in the U.S. The firm is charged with testing the system’s security, telecommunications, error, notification, auditing, and recovery, and its functions under various load and stress situations. Each module will be tested according to industry standards. Systest Labs had until Feb. 6 to submit its evaluation.

It was reported that the US federal government was concerned not only about SysTest Labs’s technical competence, but also its ethics. It was also reported that the US Election Assistance Commission had probed SysTest Labs for allowing one of its clients, the manufacturer and vendor ES&S (Election Systems and Software), to unduly influence its certification procedures.

The USEAC had expressed concern that SysTest was allowing and inviting manufacturers to play an inappropriate role in the development of test plans since it was not appropriate for a manufacturer to be directly involved in creating plans for testing their own systems. Also, the USEAC chided SysTest labs for making “an inappropriate promise of certification” to the manufacturer.

It also reported that the US federal government was concerned that SysTest Labs was rigging its certification process in behalf of ES&S. Also,the ES&S iVotronics touch screen electronic voting system certified by SysTest Labs has been cited in a number of electoral controversies, including statewide and local elections in Florida in 2006.

As a result of the suspension of its accreditation, another election services vendor, Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold), sued SysTest Labs in Jan. 2009 in a US Federal Court for fraud, fraudulent inducement, breach of contract, unjust enrichment, conversion and deception. Premier claimed that SysTest Lab’s substandard procedures wreaked havoc on its business.

It was claimed that Smartmatic has had a long-standing relationship with SysTest Labs. Its Smartmatic Auditable Election System (SAES) 1800 Precinct Tabulator, which will be deployed in over 70,000 precincts on election day, was certified as “over 99.99999%” accurate. But the certification comes from SysTest Labs, possibly in accordance with the shoddy procedures criticized by the US federal government.

PRIVATE AND PUBLIC KEYS

The assertion that Comelec has yielded to Smartmatic the effective control and supervision over the poll automation project does not only send chills to the spine but provides a preview of the possible end game on May 10. In short, Smartmatic, a foreign firm of dubious reputation, has become too powerful to lord over the entire automated electoral process. This reality becomes more glaring particularly when the issue of private and public keys on poll automation is being raised.

In its report, Pacific Strategies & Assessments said: “A public key infrastructure (PKI) enables users of a basically unsecure public network, such as the Internet, to securely and privately exchange data through the use of a public and a private cryptographic key pair that is acquired and shared through a trusted authority. Comelec bid bulletin #10 directs Smartmatic-TIM to generate private and public keys of all Board of Elections Inspectors (BEI) and Board of Canvassers (BoC) personnel – the individuals responsible for communicating the precinct results.

“Unfortunately, in the proposed system, the private key is not private. After collation of votes, the BEI will seal its tally with a digital signature using private keys before transmitting the results. Regrettably, as it stands now, Smartmatic will have possession of the secret and the public keys of all BEI. In essence, the digital signatures would be generated and assigned by Smartmatic or groups authorized by it; not an independent or trusted authority. By possessing the private keys, Smartmatic and its associated parties can make changes to the precinct election results without detection.”

OTHER ISSUES

A host of other issues have become equally contentious, further jeopardizing the poll automation project:

· The worsening Mindanao power crisis threatens to engulf many areas in the country’s second largest island, leading to possible failure of elections in those areas.
· The delay in the training of some 400,000 public school teachers, who would man the clustered polling precincts, could lead to their poor grasp of the nature of poll automation.
· The continuing difficulty of the Smartmatic-TIM consortium in finding qualified technology specialists, would adversely affect the poll automation project since these people would provide the training and support for the automated electoral system.
· The separate memory cards of the voting machines increases the vulnerability of the automated electoral system software since placing the software on an external memory disk or flash drive complicates the voting system functionality and opens up opportunities for damage, tampering, and alteration.
· The absence of any perceptible fallback option in case the poll automation project fails, leading to a failure of elections.

FAILURE OF ELECTIONS

At this point, talks of a possible failure of elections – partial or total - have been prevalent. The endgame scenario has been the subject of conjectures among political leaders, observers and pundits, who view the future with a bleak outlook.

They claimed that a failure of elections could lead to a constitutional crisis if ever Congress fails to proclaim a new president before the expiration of the term of office of the incumbent President. They warned of a potential power vacuum, which certain predatory political forces could take advantage.

Several scenarios have been advanced. These include:
· The incumbent President assuming control on a holdover capacity, which is until a new president shall have been proclaimed;
· The establishment of a military junta, which Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Charito Planas had acknowledged; and
· Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile’s scenario on the possible entry of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police by invoking the “protector of the people” doctrine.

At this point, any of the scenarios or a combination of them would appear unpalatable since they appear without any constitutional basis.

CONCLUSIONS

Several conclusions could be deduced from the discussions:

1. Comelec appears to be biting more than it could chew. It has not transcended the institutional weakness and debilitating low credibility to the point that practically all major sector sectors have expressed misgivings on its ability and managerial capability to run the envisioned automated electoral system without major hitches and glitches.

2. Smartmatic has assumed an inordinate position of strength in the implementation of the poll automation project. Because of the inherent institutional weaknesses of Comelec, Smartmatic has become the virtual player that could dictate the conduct of the automated electoral process. It would appear it has made Comelec beholden to what it wishes to undertake.

3. The failure of elections scenario is more real than imagined. It has sufficient bases. It could lead to a constitutional crisis, where the exact endgame is a matter of conjecture.

Emy Boncodin

2010-03-20T05:13:00.000+08:00

The Angel of the Budget
In memory of Emy Boncodin
By: Mario Taguiwalo

The loss of someone as precious as Emy Boncodin makes us pause from the urgencies of our daily pursuits to contemplate the meaning of one life.

It seems that there are endless variations in how we could die. We could drown in the floods of Ondoy or be among those massacred in Maguindanao. We could be crushed by a wayward truck on Sumulong Highway or run over by a bus on Edsa. We could die among those on an Air Force plane that crashed into a house upon take-off from Cotabato City airport or be among those who died inside the house the plane hit. We could encounter Jason Ivler on a traffic altercation at a congested intersection of Greenhills or be one of the nameless bodies found floating on a Davao City creek.

Emy died when her heart stopped while lying on a hospital bed at the National Kidney and Transplantation Institute in Quezon City.

In contrast to the endless variety of dying, there are really only two ways we can live our lives. Either we serve our fellow men and women, or we serve ourselves. Emy served her fellow man even as she saw many around her, including those above her, who essentially served themselves. She nonetheless lived her life in service of others.

At Emy’s wake, many rich and powerful people paid tribute to this humble, simple and modest person. One would think she was still at the top of her game when she died hence the accolade. Yet she had long left her position of power. All these tributes testify to the unique and enduring power that Emy exercised, not for herself, but for the benefit of others.

Emy served her country and her fellow Filipinos via a special way, by mastering the many annual versions of the more than a thousand page books called the General Appropriations Act also known as “The Budget” also pronounced as “badyet”. There is a reason why it is indeed “badyet”. It is really bad yet it could be of some good.

“The Budget” is really bad. It is financed by taxes, which means it comes from our sweat as citizens, taken from our pockets, snatched from our hands, denied from our children, extracted from our businesses and enterprises. Often when it is financed by borrowings, it is even taken from the future incomes of our children.

Yes, it is bad, yet it can do some good. It can protect us, care and educate our children, improve the productivity of our land and our workers, and ease our many common problems from congestion to criminality to contagious diseases.

The budget could be an instrument of our economic liberation or an instrument for our deeper indebtedness. It can be a tool to build our nation or to build private wealth at the expense of the nation. It can be a way to reach and serve our millions who are poor and disadvantaged, or it can be a private kitty of well-connected corrupt criminals.

During Emy’s long watch over the budget, she was able to make the imperfect rules governing its preparation, authorization and execution yield as many benefits that any political instrument can reasonably generate. Above anything else, she showed how faithful stewardship in public life is practiced. Despite her discretionary power over billions of pesos that will only flow upon her signature or instruction, she herself did not exact any benefit beyond her legal entitlement as a civil servant. To our great misfortune as a nation, that can be said of very few who served in similar positions in this and earlier governments.

Faithful, dedicated and selfless service defined Emy’s professional career. In the priesthood of the budget, Emy rose from sacristan to parish priest to bishop and eventually, cardinal. Among those of us who knew about this lady at DBM from afar, our common impression was that she was a kind of brilliant technician who solved obscure and important problems of legality and procedure in budget processes without asking too many questions about deeper moral ends or ultimate purposes. She had a reputation for helping everyone, from activist legislator to local warlord, from bright reformer to jaded old pros, from officials with good intentions to grafters in barong. In her budget priesthood, she dealt with sinners and saints and provided them equally with guidance and support according to the rules of the bureaucracy.

If Emy’s story ended there, it would still have been a remarkable one, about a kid from Bicol who rose to the top of the national bureaucracy on the wings of intelligence, dedication, and steady hard work. But something else defined Emy. In an act that was so uncharacteristic of her long career, she resigned from the Cabinet to reject the legitimacy of a president she judged not to have honestly earned the mandate of the people.

Emy can serve everyone bearing the mandate of the people, even those she regarded as not entirely trustworthy. But when a president has not secured a true unquestioned mandate from the people, then the very source of authority is poisoned and cannot be sustained. This act of resigning from the Cabinet and calling for the president to resign defined Emy as someone capable of deep moral outrage, in addition to her proven capacity for faithful and dedicated service. With this act, Emy moved from being a cardinal of the budget to becoming an angel of the budget, an angel fighting the devil in the details.

Looking at Emy lying peacefully in such an elegant casket with all those white flowers makes me feel that her eternal rest is well earned. It feels good to do the right thing. Her passing at the age of 55 is not a waste. It is the culmination of her simplicity, modesty and restraint not to do more to extend what was already a life full of achievement and fulfilment. She spent her 55 years exercising her beloved profession for the benefit of her beloved people. Many people with more years in this world than her still cannot say the same thing.

Emy has died. And we mourn her deeply. But if we think through our grief, we must also recognize that all of Emy’s 55 years were really in consideration of this final end when she shall stand for a final accounting of her life before her Maker. After billions of pesos passed through her hands without her ever being tempted to dip into that treasure trove for herself, Emy can face the final judgment with the calm and confidence we all see in her face as she lies in state. Can we all be as calm as confident as Emy when our time comes? Does anyone doubt that the time of final accounting will surely come?

Emy had a frail body, but she had a strong mind and above all a bright soul. Her virtues will live long after the damage of bad governance has done their worst. Whenever a civil servant refuses to do what is wrong, whenever an official asserts what is right, whenever ideals and principles animate the actions of government, Emy lives on. Her spirit endures and prevails. And our nation rejoices with the enrichment from the labours of this angel of the budget, the truly Honorable Emilia Boncodin.

[Critic-at-large's note: Emilia "Emy" Boncodin served as the Philippine budget secretary, until she resigned in protest against Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's cheating during presidential elections.]

A 100 Percent Manual Audit of the AES?

2010-02-28T07:45:00.000+08:00

From Felicito C. Payumo:

Lately, there have been enough people who, previously, were giving the COMELEC the benefit of doubt in making the Automated Election System (AES) “systems ready” before the May elections but are now clamoring that it switches to a “completely manual mode.” It is not just the readiness of the system but the acceptability to the public of the machine count that is being questioned. But a fully-manual system means going back to the 45 days of nerve-wracking waiting game and making our country again a laughing stock while the rest of the world watches our slow motion count. And wouldn’t that put to complete waste the P7.2 Billion rental payment to Smartmatic?

Do we have no other option but to make a leap of faith in the untried and distrusted AES or revert to the fully- manual system of counting and canvassing of votes? Are they our only two ineluctable choices?

While the law requires a Random Manual Audit (RMA) of one precinct per congressional district, everyone agrees that that sample size is woefully inadequate. Suggestions have been made to increase it from ¼ of 1 percent of the population to 7.5 percent - the bigger the sample the less margin of error- but the COMELEC has been non-committal. Equally important is the transparency of the manual audit by the BEI auditors using the traditional manual counting witnessed by official watchers of political parties and accredited observers. The results of both the PICOS machine count and manual count should be posted in the precincts. Needless to say, in case of discrepancy, the “root cause of the discrepancy” should first be determined as required by law, but the count that is most transparent –i.e. manual count- should be the one transmitted electronically. Common sense dictates that there be no proclamation of candidates before the manual audit. The argument that waiting for the manual count will cause delay betrays the “rush to proclaim” intent. The manual count, as everyone knows, takes at most 12 hours.

100 Percent Manual Audit- But there is a third and preferred option -a 100 percent parallel manual audit- this, being our first nationwide automated elections. All ballots counted by the 75,471 PICOS machines should be manually counted in the traditional fashion before the public at the precinct level. I can almost hear the COMELEC officials cry “why spend for the machines if we are to do 100 percent manual count anyway? It will mean extra cost and delay.” Even the technical experts among my friends think that a 100 percent manual audit is an overkill.

But they miss the point! Public acceptance of election results of the local contests is equally important as acceptance at the national level. A given sample size may be adequate to determine the accuracy of the count for national candidates but not at the local level. To illustrate, SWS or Pulse Asia, with a sample size of 1200 in their poll surveys, can give results with a + or – 3 percent margin of error for national candidates. But the same sample size - divided into 4 areas, namely, 400 for Metro-Manila, 400 for Luzon, 400 for Visayas and 400 for Mindanao – is too small to read the preferences for Governor, Congressman, and especially, Mayor with the same degree of accuracy. In like manner, a sample size for random manual audit good enough to determine the winners of national candidates, will certainly not be acceptable to determine the winners at the local level. A candidate for Mayor, especially, who has no trust in the machines, will not accept his loss when only 1 or 5 precincts have been manually audited in his municipality.

Hence, a 100 percent manual audit of all machine counts is not an exercise in superfluity. It is imperative that there be public acceptance of the election results from national down to local level. Public acceptance is indispensable in a democracy.

It also serves as the first block in confidence building for the AES. Should the results show a high congruence between the machine and manual counts, then the AES, subject only to normal safeguards will encounter less public resistance in the 2013 and subsequent elections. The funds spent for the machines, therefore, will not have been wasted, and automation, still “a consummation devoutly to be wished”, will be attained.

With respect to the extra cost of doing the manual audit, the same BEIs attending to the voters in their precincts can be used as auditors for other precincts. At 3 BEI-auditors per precinct, the 75,000 clustered precincts will need a total of 225,000 auditors. Paying P1000 per auditor will total only P225 million. It is a small amount to be paid for public acceptance of the election outcome.

After paying a staggering P7.2 Billion to a foreign company, Smartmatic, for mere rental of the PICOS machines, COMELEC should not quibble about a pittance to our own teachers and officials, (who will probably circulate the money in the country in a matter of days) in the interest of a credible election. But should the COMELEC refuse, the public has the right to ask, “Is there a sinister agenda that we do not know”?

Felicito C. Payumo

F.C.Payumo was a three-term Congressman of Bataan and former SBMA Chairman/Administrator. He is Chairman of the University of Nueva Caceres.

Tyranny of Guile

2010-02-08T10:14:00.001+08:00

We witnessed in the past few days a rising public indignation against an attempt of this administration in its dying days to extend power by proxy. We witnessed the brazen and sly attempt to pave the way for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to appoint the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

We have an administration adept at operating in the shadows trying to make a midnight appointment. Not content with appointing all but one of the men and women sitting in the High Court, this outgoing President desires nothing less than absolute domination even at the expense of violating our fundamental law.

We condemn this move to have the outgoing President appoint the next Chief Justice that also paves the way for the appointment of his replacement. This yields a Supreme Court of 15 Justices, all of whom were appointed by the same President. It is yet another manifestation of shameless impunity. It is yet another arrogant display of power. It is yet another breach of our trust. We see clearly through this brash yet clumsy attempt to shield the guilty from accountability.

We are appalled to see brilliant minds so servile and to hear spin spewing from glib but forked tongues. They have all been reduced to peddle silly lies that insult their own intelligence.

We do not claim to be legal luminaries but we can all read and understand our fundamental law. The Chief Justice is a member of the Supreme Court. The President can only appoint a Chief Justice from a list of nominees submitted by the Judicial and Bar Council. Midnight appointments are prohibited by the Constitution. This ban stays until June 30. The next President has 45 days from assuming office on June 30 to appoint the next Chief Justice. Our Constitution is not the exclusive domain of lawyers. It is the most fundamental law that binds us all.

We call on anyone with ambition to lead our judicial institutions not to be seduced by power and shun any unconstitutional appointment. There is no honor in empty titles conferred by deceit. There is a price to pay for complicity in criminal acts for those who conspire in this midnight appointment and anyone who benefits from it.

We call on Chief Justice Reynato Puno to rise and meet this defining moment as his judicial career comes to a close. We ask for his strong moral leadership as Chairman of the Judicial and Bar Council and reject calls to transmit to this outgoing President the list of nominees for his replacement. Let not a tarnished and divided Supreme Court be his legacy to our nation.

We admire those who, with the courage of their convictions and in plain and simple words, make their intentions known without equivocation. We are inspired by people who take a stand against the tyranny of guile.

We call on others aspiring to lead our country to likewise condemn in the strongest possible terms the acts of this administration that undermine judicial independence and further erode our democratic institutions. It is their bounden duty to do so. We ask them to also tell our people how they intend to deal with the excesses of this administration when they assume the mantle of leadership.

We find comfort knowing that the abuse will soon come to pass. We vow to work for a better future in the company of people who have the courage to speak truth to power.

We remain committed to work for good governance and the restoration of decency and propriety in public service.

We stand as one in defense of our Constitution and the Rule of Law.

SIGNED:
Sen. Vicente Paterno
Sen. Leticia Ramos Shahani
Tomas Africa
Ariel Aguirre
Rafael Alunan III
Angelito Banayo
Leonor Briones
Victor Gerardo Bulatao
Sostenes Campillo Jr.
Elfren Cruz
Isagani Cruz
Neni Sta. Romana Cruz
Rodel Cruz
Jose Cuisia
Guillermo Cunanan
Karina Constantino David
Edilberto De Jesus Jr.
Ramon Del Rosario Jr.
Teresa Quintos Deles
Carlos Dominguez
Jesus Estanislao
Fiorello Estuar
Fulgencio Factoran Jr.
Ernesto Garilao
Cecilia Garrucho
Milwida Guevarra
Philip Ella Juico
Nixon Kua
Lina Laigo
Ernest Leung
Alberto Lim
Narzalina Lim
Juan Miguel Luz
Gregorio Magdaraog
Jose Molano Jr.
Vitaliano Nañagas
Norberto Nazareno
Imelda Nicolas
Cayetano Paderanga
Guillermo Parayno Jr.
Felicito Payumo
Cesar Purisima
Victor Ramos
Amina Rasul
Walfrido Reyes
Sixto Roxas
Miguel Perez Rubio
Juan Santos
Cesar Sarino
Corazon Juliano Soliman
Hector Soliman
Jaime Galvez Tan
Ricardo Mirasol Tan
Wilfrido Villacorta

(Philippine Star, 8 February 2010, p. 17)

Remarks at my book launching

2010-01-30T08:47:00.000+08:00

During the launch of a book, just like in awards ceremonies, an author is expected to thank everybody. I will do that by first thanking Dr. David Jonathan Y. Bayot, the Sherlock Holmes to my Watson, because I like posing really difficult questions, and he likes searching for their answers, so we make a good pair. I am notoriously unable to redo what I have already done – been there, written that – and he takes the trouble to hunt down my scholarly articles and put them in some sort of logical order. He has found unity where I intended merely to sow discord. Thank you, David, for this festschrift.

It is really a festschrift in the European sense of the word, a collection of articles by the honoree, just like Emerita Quito’s A Life of Philosophy. David and Karina Bolasco of Anvil Publishing are working on another festschrift, the American kind, to be launched on April 16. Good things always come in pairs. Let me invite you this early to the launching of Inter/Sections. Both The Other Other and Inter/Sections will be relaunched in Los Angeles on April 30, and if you have the time and the money, I invite you to that one, too.

I want to thank Agnes Malcampo, indefatigable and irresistible head of publications here at FEU. She just kept nagging me and nagging me and nagging me until I gave her the manuscript, then she kept nagging me and nagging me and nagging me about everything else that has to be done to a manuscript until it sees print.

I want to thank Dr. Lourdes Montinola, chair of the FEU board, Dr. Lydia Echauz, president, and the management of FEU for giving me an ID so I can enter the campus, for employing me even after I retired from De La Salle University in 2005 with the illusion that I could live on my savings, for giving me a post through which I am able to oversee the continuing education of FEU teachers, for welcoming me as a member of the FEU family. This book is worth not retiring.

I can’t possibly name everybody referred to in the acknowledgements or listed in the index of the book, but I want to thank especially the late Brother Andrew Gonzalez, FSC, who kept at me to keep writing, and Professor Thelma Arambulo of UP Diliman, who babysat the manuscript by proofreading, copyediting, giving comments, even while she was in Canada, presumably to get away from academic work. Unfortunately, as everyone that has ever published a book knows, there are always those awful typographical errors that refuse to go away. I apologize to my readers for those. They’re my fault and no one else’s.

I’m also expected to say something about the book, even if David has already talked about it. I’ve been lucky to have been asked several times to write articles in foreign journals, encyclopedias, and books, and I’ve often wished that Filipinos in the Philippines would have a chance to read those articles. This book puts together many of those articles, not all of them, and I hope these articles challenge readers the way my local articles are meant to do.

I think of this book as my letter to the world, as Emily Dickinson would put it, that has written to me many times, through the publishers, conference convenors, book editors, and foundations that have given me time, space, and often money to write these articles. In particular, together with the Philippine American Educational Foundation and the Fulbright Program of the United States, Wichita State University was very kind to me. Wichita gave me a chance to finish writing the last part of this book, which is made up of critical essays on my literary father, Bienvenido N. Santos. I promised Mang Ben that I would finish my essays on him. This is the fulfilment of that promise, even if it’s only a quarter of a book. I want to thank Tomas Santos, Mang Ben’s son, who came all the way from Colorado to be with us today (just a little lie, because he really came for his sister's birthday tomorrow).

Now, let me talk about myself.

My students know that I am happy when I am with them in the classroom, challenging them to think in ways they never thought before. I am happy when I am surrounded by my students. I thank my students, all of them in the 41 years I have been teaching. It’s my last term of teaching, as I will be too old by my birthday in April to connect with people young enough to be my grandchildren.

My friends and family know that I am happy when I am with them, exchanging stories, experiences, trips, memories, food, affection, love. I am happy when I am surrounded by friends and family. I thank my friends, many of whom are right here in this room. You have taken time off to come to the cleanest place in downtown Manila, perhaps the only clean place. I thank my teachers who have become my friends, especially my best teachers mentioned in the dedication in the book: Mr. Gil Raval (my English teacher in all my four years of high school in Lourdes School), the late Professor Nieves Epistola (we call her Mrs. E., my English teacher in UP who forced me to write a full essay every week), Fr. Joseph Galdon SJ (my English teacher for my MA at the Ateneo, who forced me to be grammatical because he refused to continue reading my assignment once he detected a grammatical error), Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera (the chair of the English Department at the Ateneo during my graduate studies, who took me by the hand and showed me how to be a truly Filipino scholar), and Dr. Marjorie Perloff (before she became president of the Modern Language Association and one of the top three living critics in America today, she was the angry young woman at the University of Maryland who forced me to read in French and introduced me to the rigors of Russian Formalism). I thank my family, especially my most skeptical critic Medy, who has had to share me with my computer.

But they – you – all know that I am happier when I am with Plato, Aristotle, Rizal, Jacques Derrida, and all the philosophers and literary critics I talk with when I am reading their books. I am happier when I am surrounded by books, by their authors, all of them still alive and in my room, debating with me through their books. I am happier when I am in front of my computer, writing to these intellectuals that have changed the way we all think. I thank all the intellectuals, living or dead, listed in the index of the book.

But I am happiest when I give birth to a book, when I am able to hold in my hands a product not just of my own conversations with students, friends, family, and living or dead intellectuals, but also a product of the people in an industry I love so much (publishing, which I love almost as much as education and the theater). Many artists and laborers contribute to creating my books. The Jewish Talmud had it only partly right. It said that, to live a full life, we must have a child, plant a tree, and write a book. Anyone can do those, yes, even write a book. I think that, to live a really full life, we must nurture the child until adulthood (in other words, we should teach), we should care for the tree until it bears fruit, and we should not just write a book but publish it.

A book is more than just another line in my curriculum vitae, more than just another accession number on my library shelf, more than just another memory to enjoy when old age kindly stops for me (since, still following Emily Dickinson, I cannot stop for it). A book represents a chapter in my life. This book represents the life of the scholarly writer that I lived for almost half a century, a life that I intend to leave come April, when I turn 65 and, as the Beatles described that age, I finally lose all my hair. For the sake of food on the table I will still do administrative work in universities and government until my spirit, though willing, will be too weighed down by my flesh, a 65-year-old body that now needs repair more often.

But, my students, my colleagues, my friends, my family, I will spend more quality time with you. I can talk to Plato, Aristotle, Rizal, Derrida, and all the rest of scholarly gang when I meet them in heaven, and that can wait.

Thank you. (Delivered at the launching of The Other Other at Far Eastern University, 29 January 2010)

Not the third-largest English-speaking country

2010-01-17T05:01:00.000+08:00

I posted this on my other blog (LOL Literatures in Other Languages):

The ranking of the Philippines in the list of English-speaking countries varies widely from Number 18 in Nationmaster to Number 5 in Wikipedia. Only Filipinos who have never been to India, the USA, Nigeria, UK, and China claim that the Philippines is up there with the biggies. Don't ask me why it should be a source of pride to speak English. Ethnologue says that English is only the third most-spoken language in the world, trailing Chinese and Spanish. (For Philippine languages: Filipino is Number 37, Tagalog 39, Cebuano 57, Ilocano 98, Hiligaynon 115, Bikol 130.)

The Other Other

2010-01-15T05:09:00.000+08:00

THE OTHER OTHER
Isagani R. Cruz
Edited by David Jonathan Y. Bayot
Far Eastern University Publications
Manila
2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: Isagani R. Cruz, the Critical-in-Difference, and the Other Other, by David Jonathan Y. Bayot

The Critical S/subjects as the Other Other

Imperialism
The Other Other: Towards a Postcolonial Poetics
Edith L. Tiempo as a Literary Critic
Demythologizing Postcolonial Otherness, or Why Anti-Imperialism Does Not Imperil Imperialism
Resisting the New Cultural Imperialism: Against Postcolonial Theories of Literature
Deeuropeanizing Theory
Philippine Literary Criticism Today

A Philippine Ontology: Facets and Phrases

The Philippines
A Nation Searching for a Language Finds a Language Searching for a Name
One Thousand Years of Filitude
The Discourse of People Power
What’s the Word on the Bases, and Why are They Saying Such Terrible Things about Them?

Faces of the Subjects with/in the Other Other

The Beginnings of Philippine Literature: The Epic Tradition
Malay Consciousness in Philippine Literature
The Southeast Asian Writer’s Non-ASEAN Roots
Philippine Literature in the Age of Ninoy
Images of Japan in Contemporary Philippine Literature
White Snow, Brown Earth: Philippine-American Cultural Relations
Emersonian Values in Philippine Literature
Deconstructing America: America through the Eyes of Filipino Writers
English and Tagalog in Philippine Literature: A Study of Literary Bilingualism
Philippine Fiction from English
Introducing the Man: F. Sionil Jose in Literary and Historical Context
The Future of Philippine Literature in English
Philippines
Literary Magazines
Poetry
Publishing
Short Fiction
Translation
Southeast Asian Novel: Philippines

Face-to-Face with the Other Other

A Deconstructive Meditation on the Writer and Society
Bienvenido N. Santos
Bienvenido, Our Brother: The Man Behind the Author
Villa Bienvenido: The Poetic Universe
The Man Who (Thought He) Was Santos: The Narrator in the Short Stories
Introduction to the Second Edition of The Day the Dancers Came
The Volcano Erupts: The First Novels
Bienvenido N. Santos on Bienvenido N. Santos
Ben Santos in Wichita / Wichita in Ben Santos

Works Cited

Index of Names

ERF: Fidel Ramos

2010-01-08T18:21:00.000+08:00

During the presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, I chanced upon former president Fidel V. Ramos in the lobby of a hotel in Ortigas Center. I was alone, waiting for my driver to come around with my car. He was alone (at least, he was standing alone, although I suppose he had bodyguards standing inconspicuously somewhere near), also waiting for his driver to come around with his car.

I greeted him, "Mister President, you were the best president we have had."

He answered without hesitation, "That's because everyone who followed me was so bad!"

His car came and whisked him away before he could explain to me why Erap Estrada and Gloria Arroyo were very bad presidents, but I guess the reasons are obvious. Erap was convicted and Gloria pardoned him. Erap was proven to be corrupt. Gloria is reputed to be corrupt. Erap was successfully removed from office by the people themselves. The people (at least 75% of the entire population, according to an SWS survey) have been trying to remove Gloria from office, but unsuccessfully. Yes, Ramos (apparently not exactly an angel) looks like a saint compared to his two successors.

Manigong bagong taon!

2010-01-01T06:49:00.001+08:00

Mabungahong Bag-ong Tuig kaninyong tanan, Magayagayang ba'gong taon, Narang-ay a Baro a Tawen kadakayo amin, Manigong bagong taon, Mainuswagon nga Bag-ong Tuig ha iyo nga tanan, Mahigugmaon nga Bag-ong Dag-on kinyo tanan, Masaplalang Bayung Banwa keko ngan, Mahimungayaon nga Bag-ong Tuig, Gelukkige nuwejaar, Gëzuar vitin e ri, Բարի կաղանդ և ամանոր, e glëckliches nëies, عام سعيد , shnorhavor nor tari, yeni iliniz mubarek, aw ni san'kura, urte berri on, З новым годам, መልካም አዲስ አመት, subho nababarsho, asgwas amegas, mbembe mbu, bonne année, sretna nova godina, bloavezh mat, честита нова година, hnit thit ku mingalar pa, 新年快樂, 新年快乐, bon any nou, pace e salute, sretna nova godina, šťastný nový rok, godt nytår, sale naw tabrik, gelukkig Nieuwjaar, felicxan novan jaron, feliæan novan jaron, head uut aastat, eƒé bé dzogbenyui nami, gott nýggjár, onnellista uutta vuotta, gelukkig Nieuwjaar, bonne année, lokkich neijier, bon an, feliz aninovo, გილოცავთ ახალ წელს, ein gutes neues Jahr, Ευτυχισμένο το Νέο Έτος, sal mubarak, rogüerohory año nuévo-re, bònn ané, hauoli makahiki hou, שנה טובה, nav varsh ki subhkamna, nyob zoo xyoo tshiab, नये साल की हार्दिक शुभकामनायें, boldog új évet, farsælt komandi ár, selamat tahun baru, ath bhliain faoi mhaise, felice anno nuovo, sugeng warsa enggal, 明けましておめでとうございます, asseggas ameggaz, hosa varshada shubhaashayagalu, zhana zhiliniz kutti bolsin, sur sdei chhnam thmei, umwaka mwiza, umwaka mwiza, 즐거운 성탄절 보내시고 새해 복 많이 받으세요, sala we ya nû pîroz be, sabai di pi mai, felix sit annus novus, laimīgu Jauno gadu, feliçe annu nœvu, mbula ya sika elamu na tonbeli yo, laimingų Naujųjų Metų, gelükkig nyjaar, e gudd neit Joër, Среќна Нова Година, arahaba tratry ny taona, selamat tahun baru, nava varsha ashamshagal, is-sena t-tajba, kia porotu te ano ou, kia hari te tau hou, नवीन वर्षच्या हार्दिक शुभेच्छा, Шинэ жилийн баярын мэнд хvргэе, wênd na kô-d yuum-songo, umyaka omucha omuhle, godt nyttår, bon annada, nawe kaalmo mobarak sha, سال نو مبارک, szczęśliwego nowego roku, feliz ano novo, ਨਵੇਂ ਸਾਲ ਦੀਆਂ ਵਧਾਈਆਂ, bun di bun onn, baxtalo nevo bersh, un an nou fericit, С Новым Годом, ia manuia le tausaga fou, nzoni fini ngou, bonu annu nou, bliadhna mhath ur, Срећна нова година, mwaha mwema, goredzva rakanaka, nain saal joon wadhayoon, suba aluth avuruddak vewa, šťastný nový rok, srečno novo leto, dobir leto, sanad wanagsan, feliz año nuevo, wan bun nyun yari, mwaka mzuri, gott nytt år, es guets Nöis, manigong bagong taon, ia orana i te matahiti api, assugas amegaz, iniya puthandu nalVazhthukkal, yaña yıl belän, నూతన సంవత్శర శుభాకాంక్షలు, สวัสดีปีใหม่, tashi delek, tshidimu tshilenga,ርሑስ አውደ ዓመት, posa varshada shubashaya, yeni yiliniz kutlu olsun, gluk in'n tuk, Vyľ Aren, Z novym rokom, نايا سال مبارک هو, yangi yilingiz qutlug' bo'lsin, ༄༅།།ལོ་གསར་ལ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས་ཞུ།, Chúc Mừng Nǎm Mới, bone annéye, blwyddyn newydd dda, bon lanné, dewenati, אַ פֿרײליכע ניטל און אַ גוטער נײַער יאָר, روجىستىۋا بايرىمىڭىزغا مۇبارەك بولسۇن !

Martial Law might be declared in the whole Philippines

2009-12-06T04:51:00.000+08:00

Statement of Rep. Teofisto “TG” Guingona
on the declaration of Martial Law in Maguindanao
05 December 2009

"I would like to reiterate my condemnation of the brutal and senseless Maguindanao massacre. Justice must be attained, and it must be attained swiftly. This can be resolutely attained under existing laws and will power on the part of the authorities, without a declaration of Martial Law. They have already suppressed any lawless violence and have already controlled the Ampatuans, as evidenced by the successful raid on their residence and the discovery and confiscation of their arms and ammunition. Again, the wolf has already been defanged. No need for Martial Law.

"Under the 1987 Constitution, Martial Law can only be declared when two things are present: (1) the existence of ACTUAL invasion or rebellion, and (2) when public safety requires it. BUT there is no actual invasion or rebellion at the moment. The allegation in Proclamation 1959 that “heavily armed groups in the province of Maguindanao have established positions to resist government troops, thereby depriving the Executive of its powers and prerogatives to enforce the laws of the land and to maintain public order and safety” IS UTTERLY WITHOUT FACTUAL AND LEGAL BASIS. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo can order the Armed Forces of the Philippines to prevent or suppress lawless violence, invasion or rebellion WITHOUT DECLARING MARTIAL LAW AND WITHOUT SUSPENDING THE PRIVILEGE OF THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS. Martial law poses a grave threat to our democracy and should not be taken lightly and should not be declared at the whim and paranoia of the present administration.

"I would like to warn the public on the possibility that the administration of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will exploit the situation in Maguindanao. Unlike the Martial Law imposition of President Marcos, which was done swiftly, in one blow, all over the country, there is a possibility of a “creeping” Martial Law by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. We all know that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has proven her lust for remaining in power. What is to stop the administration from recreating disorder, violence, and chaos in other places, exploiting the sense of helplessness of civilians in dismantling warlords, thereby orchestrating widespread acceptance. Thereafter, they can put up a front of running after “KUNO” drug lords, jueteng lords, smugglers, oligarchs, etc., again as a strategy of gaining acceptance amongst the people and expanding the area of coverage of Martial Law.

"I was around during the early days when Martial Law was declared by President Marcos. I vividly remember the initial feeling of stability and peace and order during those early days. The pattern seems to be repeating itself. One, create violence and chaos. Two, exploit the citizens’ helplessness in dealing with the violence and chaos. Three, declare Martial Law. History is repeating itself."

ERF: Cory Aquino 2

2009-11-22T05:32:00.002+08:00

In one of my one-on-one meetings with Cory Aquino when she was running for Philippine president, she asked me, "What would you do if you were Secretary of Education?"

Without hesitation, I answered, "I would make Filipino the medium of instruction."

She said, shaking her head, "Sobra ka naman" [You're too much).

That did in any possibility of my being named Education Secretary when she won the election against Ferdinand Marcos. Instead, she chose Lourdes Quisumbing, then president of Miriam College (formerly Maryknoll College), a much better choice than me. Quisumbing stayed in the Department of Education the whole time Cory was president, thus becoming the longest-serving Education Secretary in the history of the Philippines. Other Secretaries came and went, often without any impact on the educational system. Quisumbing introduced and advocated Values Education, a newer version of what I had during my elementary school days as "Good Manners and Right Conduct" or "Behavior."

I will always remember that particular conversation with Cory not because I lost my chance at being a member of her cabinet (whew!), but because it showed that she chose her cabinet members not because they were personally known to her, but because of their beliefs or advocacies.

Ironically, when she was President, Cory signed an Executive Order urging all government employees to use Filipino in their official transactions and communications. She was the only president to have done that. Other presidents have been, for political reasons, unwilling to comply with the Philippine Constitution, that mandates that Filipino be indeed the primary medium of official communication and the primary medium of instruction.

28th National Book Awards

2009-11-15T03:59:00.001+08:00

The NATIONAL BOOK DEVELOPMENT BOARD & The MANILA CRITICS CIRCLE
28th NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS

Arts & Alfonso T. Ongpin Prize for Best Book on Art: The Shared Voice: Chanted and Spoken Narratives from the Philippines, Grace Nono (Anvil Publishing and Fundacion Santiago)

Autobiography/Biography: Afro-Asia in Upheaval: A Memoir of Front-line Reporting, Amando Doronila (Anvil Publishing)

General Nonfiction: Ah, Wilderness! A Journey Through Sacred Time, Simeon Dumdum Jr. (Ateneo de Manila University Press)

Leisure: Café by the Ruins: Memories and Recipes, Lia Llamado, Adelaida Lim and Feliz Perez (Anvil Publishing)

Literary Criticism/Literary History: Our Scene So Fair: Filipino Poetry in English, 1905 to 1955, Gémino H. Abad (University of the Philippines Press)

Poetry: The Gods We Worship Live Next Door, Bino A Realuyo (Anvil Publishing)

Professions: Sine Gabay: A Film Study Guide, Nick Deocampo and the Center for New Cinema (Anvil Publishing)

Sciences: Diabetes is BitterSweet: A Guide to Understanding Diabetes, edited by Estrellita V. Fernando-Lopez, et. al (SweetStar Publication)

Social Sciences: Competing Views and Strategies on Agrarian Reform, Volume I: International Perspective and Volume II: Philippine Perspective, Saturnino M. Borras Jr. (Ateneo de Manila University Press)

Design: The Philippines Through European Lenses: Late 19th Century Photographs from the Meekamp Van Embden Collection, designed by Karl Frederick M. Castro (Ateneo de Manila University Press)

Publisher of the Year: Anvil Publishing

ERF: Cory Aquino 1

2009-11-06T22:57:00.001+08:00

It was after the murder of Ninoy Aquino and before Marcos announced a snap election. I was part of a group doing a video on Ninoy to be shown underground to Filipinos, so that people would know exactly why he was such a threat to Marcos that he had to be shot at the airport. I was working closely with the Cojuangco family. I met regularly with Cory in the Cojuangco building in Makati. I have so many memories of those days. Here's one:

Cory and I were left alone in the room after everybody else had left. We chatted a bit about Ninoy (I will not break confidence!). What I can reveal is this: it was after dark and there was no one left on the floor where we were. At that time, Cory was not considered in danger nor a threat to the Marcoses, so she had no bodyguards, no secretaries, no one to care for her person.

Cory said it was time for us to go home. She got up, went to the window, closed the blinds, checked the electric plugs, and as we went out the door, made sure the door was locked. There was absolutely no "presidential air" in the manner she went about making sure the office was okay before she left it. Right there, I knew that, if there were any chance at all, she should be president of the country.

A few months later, Marcos announced the snap election. Of course, I wrote Cory's first speeches, including the proclamation speech at Liwasang Bonifacio. I wrote all the speeches in Filipino. One afternoon, when she and I were again alone in her office, she asked me, "Do you think I should be running for president?"

I said, unhesitating, "Ma'am, you will make a great president."

Then she asked me something that I will never forget.

"Promise me," she said, "that if I become president, you will break through my cordon sanitaire." She was so afraid that she would be isolated from the people by the people around her.

"I promise, Ma'am," I said. That is one promise that I never fulfilled, because when she did become president, no matter how hard I tried (and I knew the people closest to her), I could never get through her cordon sanitaire.

After her term, it was much easier for me to get to her. I invited her to a couple of events I managed, and she always came. She even consented to swear me in as president of the Fulbright alumni association. But that was after her term. Before her term, I was fairly close to her. After her term, she was very nice to me. But during her term, I never got to see her. Sadly, she was indeed kept isolated by her unwanted cordon sanitaire.

ERF: Imelda Romualdez Marcos 2

2009-11-03T19:09:00.003+08:00

I headed the Secretariat of the World Population Congress, held at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in 1979. There was a typhoon then, devastating a number of places in Manila. Past midnight, I was alone in the huge Secretariat room, still proofreading the newsletter for the next day. Suddenly, Imelda walked in, alone. She went to the window, looked at the raging wind outside, and said, loud enough for me to hear (obviously meant for my ears), "We build, but nature destroys." (She said it in Filipino, "Kawawa naman tayo. Itatayo natin tapos gigibain lang ng bagyo.") At that moment, although I was no admirer of hers because I had worked in the anti-Marcos newspaper Imelda's Monthly in 1972 and had written the obviously anti-Imelda plays Tao and Halimaw for PETA in 1970, I could not help but be awed. She was then, as many who knew her then attest, extremely charming.

After I had written the two anti-Imelda plays, she called me and a number of other PETA people to Malacanang. When she came face to face with me in the line of handshakers, she said, "So you're the one." (She said it in Filipino, "Ikaw pala iyon.") She didn't say anything else.

A couple of weeks later, at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, in a huge crowd, she saw me across the hall and shouted, "Isagani!" I remember not being able to get through the crowd to shake her hand, but I felt very good then, since I thought she remembered my name. Now, looking back, I realize that an aide must have whispered my name and pointed me out to her. On the other hand, she is reputed to have a photographic memory. I would also have remembered a playwright who made a fool of me onstage!

ERF: Imelda Romualdez Marcos

2009-11-02T00:15:00.001+08:00

I want eventually to publish a book entitled Encounters with the Rich and Famous (ERF), consisting of accounts of my brief interactions with, well, the rich and famous.

Let me start the book by putting in this blog, in no special order, my memories of such encounters.

I briefly headed the Audiovisual Division of the Population Center Foundation (PCF) during the last years of martial law, when Ferdinand E. Marcos was the dictator in the Philippines. (The pay was good and, at that time, I was not a particularly politically sensitive person.) No one, therefore, dared cross his wife Imelda Romualdez Marcos, whose brainless remarks were then fodder for the alternative press.

I was sitting in a small meeting with her and the President (or was it Prime Minister) of Cambodia (I'm not sure it was the Khmer Republic then). Naturally, there was an interpreter from the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines to translate the Cambodian's French remarks into English and Imelda's English remarks into French.

Imelda was explaining why we had a Population Center Foundation (a quasi-private foundation that she founded and headed) when the government had a Population Commission.

Imelda said, "There is a lot of duplicity in our government."

We all kept poker faces and held our breaths, wondering how the interpreter was going to handle that sentence.

I knew a little French, and I understood what the interpreter said in French. The Filipino ambassador (who shall remain unnamed in order that his reputation shall not be enhanced or tarnished, depending on your political persuasion) said, "The First Lady said that our government does all it can to face the challenge of population growth" (or words to that effect).

He then proceeded to create a totally different discourse in French than the one Imelda was doing. For every stupid sentence that Imelda uttered, he invented a perfectly logical and even brilliant sentence in French, with no relationship at all to the original English sentence.

That's diplomacy at its highest (or lowest)!

Not gaga over Noynoy

2009-10-24T04:41:00.002+08:00

Why do we trust Noynoy's lineage when we could not trust Gloria's? Diosdado lived and died poor, but his daughter, well... I am not saying that Noynoy is like Gloria, but arguing from family names and blood trivializes a serious, non-personality-based election.

Filipinos helping other Filipinos

2009-09-28T05:57:00.003+08:00

There's a People Power Revolution going on (call it People Power 3): everyone helping the victims of the flooding, with or without the help of the government or those that want to be in the next government! I love the Filipino people, not just those in the country but also those abroad!

Pause

2009-09-17T03:42:00.000+08:00

My 64-year-old body will undergo an unexpected and undesired cholecystectomy and my mind will have to take a rest from thinking through Wikcriticism or interlingual criticism or language or literature or anything else. My cardiologist swears that I am a low cardiac risk, so I am not supposed to worry. Fortunately, I have a little bit of Spanish blood running in my veins, so I can say with all interlingual conviction, "Que será será" though I know that that is not Spanish at all (since the grammar is terribly wrong!), but a Hollywood corruption of "che sarà, sarà," the motto of the Duke of Bedford. The phrase appears in Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus (1594):

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and
there's no truth in us. Why, then, belike we must sin, and so
consequently die:
Ay, we must die an everlasting death.
What doctrine call you this, Che sera, sera,
What will be, shall be? Divinity, adieu!

The phrase may be interlingual (Spanish, French, Italian, whatever), but I'm not sure I like Marlowe's context! In any case, I shall be back online in a week or so, God willing.

The 2009 Philippine National Artists Awards

2009-08-05T06:18:00.000+08:00

Knowing that Cecile Guidote Alvarez is one of my closest friends, a number of people have been asking me what I think of the latest batch of National Artists. This is what I think.

Cecile Alvarez deserves to be a National Artist, but not this way.

Alvarez was nominated some years back for the award. She was chosen by her peers in theater then as their group nominee in the first phase of the selection process. She did not, at that time, get through the second phase. It is not unusual for a National Artist to have lost in earlier years. Some make it on their second or third tries. I believe that, sooner or later, Alvarez would have gotten the award anyway. She has certainly amassed a body of theater work of the quality and quantity expected of a National Artist, not only in PETA and Philippine television and radio, but in New York.

What Arroyo has done is to rob Alvarez of the joy of attaining the award on her own.

As for the other presidential awardees, I am familiar with the work of Francisco "Bobby" Manoza. I nominated him in previous years and argued for him this year. He, however, failed to make it through the third phase of this year's screening. I also believe that, sooner or later, he would win the award on his own. He has certainly built enough homes and buildings in his version of what is Filipino architecture, focusing on bamboo. To me, he is clearly worthy of being a National Artist, but not this way.

Although I am no longer active as a film critic, I know how the work of Carlo Caparas compares with those that have been unsuccessfully nominated, at one time or another, for the National Artist awards, such as Nora Aunor, Dolphy, Vilma Santos, Celso Ad. Castillo, and Kidlat Tahimik. I am very familiar with the work of the previous National Artists, namely, Lino Brocka, Ishmael Bernal, Gerardo de Leon, Fernando Poe Jr., and Eddie Romero (and now, as decided by artists themselves, Manuel Conde). A mere listing of the names of the National Artists is enough argument against the inclusion of Carlo Caparas. Those insisting that the choice of Caparas is the first time we have recognized popular culture are insulting the memory and stature of Poe, the most popular cinema artist of his time (who, by the way, should have been our president).

I cannot say anything about Pitoy Moreno, since I am not into fashion design. I was against, and am still against, fashion design as a category for art, despite my great respect for its advocate and my friend Patis Tesoro. It is true that art, like everything else, is rapidly changing and we cannot stick to the traditional list of seven arts, but we cannot expand the definition of art to such an extent that it will lose its meaning. If it is true that life is short but art is long, fashion, from its very name, is even shorter than life.

Since it is the letter of the law that has allowed a de facto president to subtract and add to the list of National Artists decided upon through an exhaustive (and exhausting) screening process, we should take steps to change the law. I suggest that we do with the National Artists what the JBC does with SC justices: the president (whoever s/he is) should not be allowed to choose anyone not in the list, not should s/he be allowed to suggest names to include in the list. That is justice. Art deserves no less.

FSGO on Corazon Aquino

2009-08-02T05:15:00.001+08:00

Former Senior Government Officials (FSGO) Statement on the Passing of President Corazon C. Aquino

We are one with the Filipino people, of all faiths and persuasions, in mourning the death of our President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino. We condole with her family, and share their grief with the rest of the nation, at the passing from her life into eternity, consoled by the knowledge that she will continue to intercede in Heaven for our country and people.

She leaves a legacy of honesty, purity of heart, faith, and love for the nation, for future elected leaders of this country to emulate. As former senior government officials, aware of the difficulties of governing, and the temptations of power which beset the Presidency, we pay homage to and express our admiration for President Cory, mother of our nation.

This blog has moved

2009-07-02T04:50:00.002+08:00

This blog has moved to Isagani R. Cruz.

Statement of Cory Aquino

2009-06-12T06:14:00.001+08:00

CORAZON C. AQUINO
Anti-CONASS Rally
Ayala Avenue, Makati
June 10,2009

Minamahal kong mga kababayan,

Ikinalulungkot ko na hindi ko kayo makakasama ngayon, ngunit kahit na mahina ang aking katawan, matatag pa rin ang aking paninindigan na tutulan ang katiwalian.

Over the years, I have learned to endure pain and sadness- first, when Ninoy was separated from us by the hand of a dictator; then, when he was taken from us by the hand of an assassin; and now that I have placed myself at the hands of a merciful God.

But perhaps there is nothing that causes me greater pain than to see our people betrayed again and again by those they have elected to lead and serve them. To those of us who had fought long and hard to restore our democracy, the pain deepens at the thought that all our gains have so quickly been eroded.

Nang mapalayas natin ang diktador, hindi ba’t ipinangako nating hindi na tayo papayag na mawala muli ang ating kalayaan? Subalit, narito muli tayo, sa gitna ng walang-hiyang pang-aabuso ng mga makapangyarihang nagnanais na sirain ang mga pinakapayak sa ating mga batas.

Hindi ito ang pamumunong nararapat para sa atin. Hindi ito ang lipunang nais kong ipamana sa mga susunod na henerasyon, kaya sa ngalan nila at ng aking sarili bilang mga mamamayang Pilipino, tumututol ako sa nais ng mga tiwaling miyembro ng kamara na palitan ang ating Saligang-Batas sa pamamagitan ng isang Constituent Assembly. At nananawagan ako sa inyo at sa lahat ng mga Pilipino na magpahayag ng ating pagprotesta rito.

Nasa inyo po ang tunay na kapangyarihan sa ating demokrasya. Huwag n’yo pong payagang manumbalik ang mga pamamaraan ng mga diktador. Tutulan po natin ang Con-Ass! At ipagdasal po natin ang ating Inang Bayan.

Mabuhay ang sambayanang Pilipino! Maraming salamat po.

My paper on education in 2001

2009-06-11T07:24:00.001+08:00

For the record, here is a paper I wrote in 2001 for a conference in China.

International Forum on Quality Education: Policy, Research, and Innovative Practices in Improving the Quality of Education, Beijing, China, 12-15 June 2001

DEMOCRATIZING QUALITY: SECONDARY EDUCATION IN THE PHILIPPINES
A Paper by Dr. Isagani R. Cruz, Philippines

ABSTRACT: A model for democratizing quality can be derived from the two People Power Revolutions launched by the Filipino people against two corrupt presidents in 1986 and 2000. Essentially, the two revolutions worked because volunteer critical masses, remaining within broad constitutional frameworks, changed leaders through moral pressure and not through either elections or violence. This People Power Model of Quality harnesses the resources of civil society to eliminate corruption in the government education ministry, to improve access to basic education, and to ensure that education remains relevant to its customers, the latter defined as both students and future employers. The Philippine model includes the participation of professional organizations and civil society groups in the evaluation and distribution of textbooks and other instructional materials, the exercise of academic freedom on the secondary level by private schools, the non-marginalization of out-of-school youth through an accreditation and equivalency system, and the institutionalization of a wide base for curricular reform.

==================================================================================

In February 1986, more than a million Filipinos gathered at the most widely-used highway in Metro Manila called EDSA (for Epifanio De los Santos Avenue, named after a 19th century scholar) to protest the continuing violations of human rights, the rape of the national economy (immortalized by the Guinness Book of World Records, which named Ferdinand Marcos the greatest thief of all time), and widespread cheating in just-concluded presidential elections. With only a handful of casualties, the non-violent event – quickly named the People Power Revolution of 1986 – forced President Marcos to step down and to flee to the United States.

In January 2001, more than a million Filipinos gathered again at EDSA to protest the lifestyle of President Joseph Ejercito Estrada, who had been impeached in the legislature for receiving payoffs from illegal gambling, depositing incredibly huge amounts of money in illegally disguised bank accounts, and violating various laws. Again, the non-violent demonstration of moral outrage forced President Estrada to step down.

The two modern-day revolutions had in common, among other things, a redefined view of democracy. In addition to – some say, instead of – the process of changing national leaders through elections, the two revolutions introduced a more dramatic and quicker way of presidential recall – voting with feet rather than with ballots. Moral pressure, rather than regular elections or armed struggle, was the tool for people to exercise their ownership of the democratic process. In effect, people took democracy into their own hands, using communications (printed newspapers in 1986 and cellular phone technology in 2001) to exercise political power.

The direct participation of civil society – as the various organized groups and disorganized individuals who joined the two revolutions are called – is the key to the national educational policy of the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration. Instead of the traditional top-down decision-making process, the Arroyo educational policy involves empowering civil society to participate widely and crucially in the educational system. Following the spirit of the two EDSA Revolutions, the Arroyo educational policy involves civil society in all aspects of education, particularly in four key areas: textbook reform, curricular reform, management of private education, and nonformal education. In all these key areas, the Arroyo administration makes full and innovative use of information and communications technologies.

Background

The Philippine basic educational system consists of one year of pre-school (sometimes more for affluent communities), six years of elementary school (usually seven for private schools), and four years of secondary or high school. There is a plan to add a fifth year to secondary school, called a pre-baccalaureate year, which will not be funded by government but will be shouldered by private higher educational institutions. On the elementary level, 89.4 % of schools are public and only 10.6 % are private. On the secondary level, 57.7 % are public and 42.3 % are private. In higher education, less than 20 % is public; higher education is essentially private education. The Philippine Constitution guarantees academic freedom to institutions of higher learning; there should, therefore, be theoretically little for government to do on the post-secondary level, although there exists a Commission for Higher Education (CHED), whose main mandated task is to fund educational innovations and to encourage quality through the identification of Centers of Excellence.

For management purposes, the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) is divided into a Central Office (based in Metro Manila), 16 Regions, Divisions under each Region, Districts under each Division, and 40,000 or so schools. In terms of share of the national budget, DECS has the largest share; this is constitutionally protected. But since the national budget is small, the actual absolute value of the money available to DECS for salaries, school building, textbook procurement, teacher training, and other necessary elements of public education is not very much. Public education receives added funding from local school boards, parent-teacher-community associations (PTCAs), and private business corporations.

As of SY 2000-2001, there were 17.9 M elementary and high school students in the Philippines. 15.8 M were in government or public schools, and 2.1 M were in private schools. The figures are not final yet for SY 2001-2002, because the academic year starts only in June in the Philippines, but it appears from media reports that there are now roughly 23 M elementary and high school students. The increase cannot be attributed entirely to the increased total population (now standing at 76 M, more than a third of school age). The new Secretary of Education, former Senator Raul S. Roco, instituted a policy of no collection of opening-day fees; previously, despite the constitutional mandate of free elementary and secondary education, schools collected various miscellaneous fees from students. This new policy clearly attracted school-age children whose main reason for not enrolling in school was money.

There are about half a million public school teachers (total for both elementary and high school levels), 441,000 on national government payroll. The reason that there is no exact figure for the number of teachers is the lack of a national management information system that encompasses both national government agencies, local government units, and private schools. Whatever the actual figure is, the shortage of teachers for public schools is over 38,000 for SY 2001-2002, a shortage that cannot be met by government due to fiscal limits.

The total ideal textbook requirement (one textbook per subject per student) for the public schools is more than 136 M. There are only 15 M textbooks already in the system, with only 64 M textbooks projected to be bought before the end of 2001. Given current budget estimates, there should be a 1:1 ratio for five basic subjects by SY 2002-2003, but this assumes that, first, the figures are accurate (which they are not) and second, that the school population does not increase significantly (and if the present educational policies work, it will). It is thus mathematically impossible for the Philippine government, even assuming a huge influx of money into the textbook procurement process, to provide textbooks for all subjects (even for all core subjects) for all students.

The shortage in classroom is still disturbing, but not as impossible to fill. As of SY 2001-2002, there is a shortage of about 8,500 classrooms. Fortunately, foreign funders are offering money for the building of classrooms, and in a year or two, the shortage should not be significant. There might be a problem with classrooms for secondary schools, if the cohort survival rate (currently standing at 67.21 % for elementary grades) improves, since there will then be about 30% more participation rate for secondary school in six years. Since it is ridiculous to plan on the basis of failure, we must assume that the Arroyo administration and future administrations will succeed in increasing the completion rate; in this worst-case (best-case?) scenario, there will be a crisis in secondary schoolrooms by 2007, a crisis brought about by success.

The solution to the increasing student population and subsequent proportional decrease in teachers, as well as to the gap between number of textbooks and number of students, lies obviously in innovating, rather than in catching up with the population. Information and communications technologies offer one way of working out of the box.

Textbook Reform

Before the Arroyo administration, textbooks before government procurement were evaluated by government curriculum experts. The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism consistently reported that textbook procurement was one of the most corruption-prone areas of responsibility of DECS. Aside from internationally expected kickbacks from purchase costs, government officials in DECS were alleged to base their evaluation of the content of textbooks on the content of their pockets after talking to publishers or suppliers.

The Arroyo administration has eliminated corruption from the textbook evaluation and procurement process. Secretary Roco ordered the opening of bidding sessions to the media; by putting bidding on television, he was able to stop suppliers from talking to the bidding committee members. On the other end of the procurement process, in the past, several suppliers would bribe school officials to certify that deliveries of textbooks had been made, even if they had not been made. That source of corruption has also been eliminated through the People Power model. Civil society groups, particularly PTCAs, now monitor textbook deliveries in the 40,000 or so public schools in the country. Because parents, in particular, have a vested interest in having textbooks in the hands of children, suppliers now cannot have what used to be called “ghost deliveries.”

The textbook evaluation process, on the other hand, became free from corruption as an offshoot of its democratization. Textbooks are now evaluated not only by government experts (who are by necessity few and easily identifiable), but also by civil society and professional organizations (organized in volunteer Technical Panels), by higher-level government officials, and by the end-users themselves in a random process. To be approved for purchase by the government, a textbook now has to have the nod of several individuals, making it impossible for a single individual or even a single group of individuals to control the approval process. It is also now financially suicidal for suppliers to offer bribes to the evaluators, not only because there are now too many people to be bribed, but also because the suppliers do not know beforehand who exactly to bribe. In introducing a democratized process of textbook evaluation, the Arroyo government eliminated corruption in a traditionally corrupt department and allowed more minds to decide on which textbooks schoolchildren should use in classrooms.

Curricular Reform

Every previous political administration in the twentieth century changed the curriculum from the top. The typical process went this way: a Central Office high-level educational think tank thought up of a pet subject that should be learned by every Filipino child, then imposed that pet subject on all schoolchildren by inserting it into the curriculum. To break the cycle of mandated curricular change, the Arroyo administration is now instituting a system of wide ownership of curricular reform. The decentralized and decentered system is parallel to the textbook evaluation and procurement process.

First, the regions submit model lesson guides done by their teachers for publication by commercial publishers. Since no copyright can subsist in anything done by government, and since these lesson plans were done on government time by government people, publishers are free to print these lesson plans without paying royalties to anyone. That cuts publishing costs by 10 to 20 percent. Since there will be more than one publisher printing each set of lesson guides, the competition will cut the prices down to something teachers can afford. Once the lesson guides are on the open market, teachers can just mention the page number or lesson number of a book and that will be the lesson plan for the day. There will be no need for teachers to do original lesson plans anymore, which is something they do for an average of two to three hours a day. This removes one of the main excuses teachers have for not keeping up with the latest intellectual trends in their respective fields.

Now, what happens when teachers use the printed lesson guides in their classes? Naturally, they will find many of these lesson guides wanting. They will want to suggest improvements in the lesson guides. There is now a toll-free telephone line at the DECS Central Office that anyone in the Philippines can call collect. Teachers will then call in their suggestions, saying that lesson such-and-such in book so-and-so has to be revamped in this or that way. The reactions will be fed back to the publishers and to the Regional Directors. What will happen, then, is that there will be a continuous revision of the lesson guides; in other words, there will be a continuous revision, de facto, of the curriculum.

When all Philippine public schools have already been wired, which will be sooner rather than later, the teachers can use the DECS website to send in their suggestions. In fact, when DECS is fully online, teachers can just revise the textbooks and lesson guides themselves, because all these now printed materials will be online anyway. By removing the write protection and allowing everyone and anyone to revise online textbooks and lesson guides, there will emerge a truly connected virtual learning and teaching community.

Student groups have also been mobilized through focused group discussions, which basically ask them what they would change in the curriculum if they had to study all over again. Similarly, a number of parents from various regions have also been giving DECS feedback about the curriculum. The Technical Panels, of course, have had a lot to say about the prescribed minimum learning competencies. In the driver’s seat for all this incessant movement is, for convenience, the DECS Central Office, particularly the Bureau of Elementary Education, the Bureau of Secondary Education, the Bureau of Nonformal Education, and the Bureau of Physical Education and School Sports. The Regions, finally, suggest, as well as implement, changes in the curriculum.

The purpose of the entire system is simple, though ambitious: it is to ensure that curricular changes will occur only through spontaneous consensus, the very energy that drove both EDSA Revolutions. By increasing the participation of stakeholders in the curricular reform process, the curriculum is thus democratized and rationalized.

Management of Private Education

During the annual Educators Congress, the first under his administration, Secretary Roco gathered the heads of professional organizations of private schools and announced to them that, henceforth, DECS would encourage them to exercise academic freedom on the secondary level. That means, in effect, freeing the private schools from strict government supervision over matters of admission, curriculum, textbooks, languages of instruction, and so on. The move was both practical and theoretical. It was practical because DECS has too many public schools to worry about and hardly any time to devote to the few private schools operating on the elementary and secondary levels. It was theoretical because it is only in private schools, with their relative freedom from government bureaucracy and tradition, that educational innovation can take place. Without educational innovation and research, the educational system cannot and will not grow.

Mainstreaming Nonformal Education

A significant portion of the time and effort of DECS is spent on nonformal education. In the past, nonformal education was considered a poor cousin, or at least a distant cousin, of the formal school system. Because of the low cohort survival rate of the formal school system (49.76 % as of SY 2000-01), however, the actual population of school-age children served by nonformal education has become too large to be marginalized. An Accreditation and Equivalency system for children of high school age was in existence before the Arroyo administration; the Bureau of Nonformal Education launched in January, 1999, an Alternative Learning System, which succeeded in breaking the perception that learning is necessarily tied up with schooling. In fact, the Bureau was awarded the UNESCO NOMA Literary Prize in 2000 for its work in institutionalizing quality, integrity, and innovation in nonformal education.

What the Arroyo administration has done is to mainstream nonformal education. Lessons learned from the nonformal educational structure are fed into the formal educational structure, thus enriching both and moving towards true equivalency, rather than merely parallel efforts. Examples of such lessons are quality of the curriculum, the learning modules, the learning process, the delivery mechanism, the accreditation and equivalency system, and the management support system. These lessons focus on the need to expand learning into non-linguistic or non-verbal or even non-cognitive areas, particularly areas included in multiple intelligences. By removing the bias towards disciplines inherent in the formal school system, nonformal education has strengthened the need for functionality and competency-based learning, in areas such as Learning to Know, Learning to Do, Learning to Be, and Learning to Live Together. By proving that self-instruction is a valid way of learning, nonformal education has made those in the formal school system conceptualize nontraditional ways of teaching, particularly with the use of self-instruction modules using computers and the Net.

Information and Communication Technologies

The Second EDSA Revolution occurred primarily because a million Filipinos with cellphones started sending text messages to each other in the middle of the night to gather at EDSA. Technology was thus crucial to the success of the Revolution, because there was no quicker way to mobilize people in less than an hour to come together in a designated place. Previous to the start of the vigil at EDSA, the Internet had become a major player in raising the consciousness of Filipinos about the corruption in the Estrada household and government. Electronic mailing groups had been formed with members in the tens of thousands, thus making it possible to mobilize such groups on short notice.

The Arroyo administration recognizes the importance of ICT and has, in fact, named ICT as one of its core concerns. In public education, Secretary Roco has put in place a program for eventually equipping all public secondary schools with computers wired to the Net. Aside from getting government and private funding for computer laboratories, Secretary Roco has also set in motion a rapid teacher training program, ranging from simple computer literacy to computer online design. It is estimated that, upon the wiring of all 5,000 or so public secondary schools in the country, there will be enough computer-trained teachers and curriculum designers to plan and implement at least partial virtualization of secondary education.

Conclusion

These four areas of concern – textbook reform, curricular reform, management of private education, and mainstreaming of nonformal education – as supported by information and communications technologies are but a few of the several initiatives being undertaken by the four-month-old administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Secretary Raul S. Roco. In four months, a lot has already been attempted, and modesty aside, done. Why are things being done in a hurry? Because, in the Philippines, we removed two sitting presidents, both of whom had enormous power and resiliency, in only four days each. The confidence we have built in our people because of our ability to mobilize and to change administrations in less than a week, less than the time it takes to count election returns in our country, is the very same confidence we bring to educational reform. The People Power Model of Educational Reform that has been outlined here is not being offered as a Best Practice, but in the Philippine context, it is a practice that works.

(Dr. Isagani R. Cruz is Undersecretary for Programs and Projects of the Department of Education, Culture and Sports of the Republic of the Philippines. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland and was a university professor and multi-awarded writer before he joined the Philippine government in 2001.)

Auschwitz and the Philippines

2009-06-11T05:18:00.000+08:00

Visiting the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945) in Auschwitz-Birkenau, was for me – as it has doubtless been for countless tourists – an experience never to be forgotten.

The objective of the site is not to let the world forget the horrors of war, particularly the incredible evil of the Nazis. In my case, the site has succeeded. Although I was born at the end of the war, I shall never forget the Holocaust.

One of the things I learned is that the victims of the horror were not just the Jews. The camp was the site of the mass murder of non-Jewish Poles, Romas (we call them gypsies, which is a derogative term and thus politically incorrect), Russian prisoners, and other prisoners from outside Poland. A sign inside the site quotes a Nazi commander saying, “All Poles, Jews, Russians, and Gypsies should be exterminated.”

In fact, the first inmates were Polish intellectuals (not all of them Jewish), Russian prisoners of war, German criminals, and German homosexuals. One thing the tour guide said struck me: “Not all Germans were Nazis and not all Nazis were German.” Some of the most cruel torturers in Auschwitz, confirmed another tour guide, were not even German Nazis (or SS) but criminals put in charge of inmates.

The main site is in the Polish town of Oświęcim, mispronounced and renamed by the Nazis as Auschwitz. Another site is a few minutes away, that of Birkenau, which today is just ruins, because the Nazis burned it down in an attempt to destroy all evidence of the mass murder.

The Auschwitz site, more precisely called Auschwitz I, is very well preserved. The beautifully-architectured prewar buildings form an ironic background to the real identity of the camp. Within the camp, about 1.1 million human beings were slaughtered by the Nazis.

In the beginning, mass murder was part of scientific experiments in medicine and in biological warfare. Later, the site became a factory, supplying Germany with artificial limbs taken from dead prisoners, human hair to be woven into rugs, and ashes for building roads. It also became a laboratory for time and motion studies of the Nazis, who learned how to become more efficient in terms of how many persons could be killed in the least amount of time and how to build incinerators that could burn the most number of bodies with the least amount of heat. The lack of humanity in the Nazis is evident in every square inch of the site.

What makes the site extremely effective in touching the hearts of visitors is the progression of exhibits, carefully designed along theatrical lines. The visitors are first shown into exhibit halls with photographs and photocopies of various pieces of evidence of the mass murders. Soon the visitors see actual pieces left intact from the war, including canisters of Zyklon-B (the basic chemical poison used in the gas chambers), various objects taken from the victims (eyeglasses, artificial limbs, hair, suitcases, household goods, clothes, and so on), the gallows, and the wall against which many prisoners were shot. Eventually, after seeing various torture cells, visitors enter a gas chamber.

What the Nazis did was clearly one of the lowest points in the history of humanity. We should not forget, however, that it was only one of many low points. Mass murders have occurred many times in our history, with huge portions of populations deliberately killed by invaders. The Auschwitz memorial is unique because it aims to make us remember. We have forgotten most of the other mass murders.

As I walked through the Auschwitz memorial, I could not help but fantasize that, one day, the Philippine government will put up similar memorials to ensure that Filipinos and foreign tourists will never forget the mass murders that happened in our own country.

Not being a historian, I cannot list them all. I just remember the attacks on the Chinese by the Spanish troops, the Balangiga massacre, the tortures done by the Japanese in Fort Santiago, and the tortures by the military during the Marcos dictatorship. If the United Nations is to be believed, torture continues to be used even today under Gloria Arroyo. Do we not owe it to our children to have them remember these horrors of declared and undeclared wars in the Philippines?

The Auschwitz buildings are just nice buildings without the exhibits. Fort Santiago is just a fort (which is so nice lovers actually enjoy walking there) without a well-conceived museum showing the horrors of World War II. Fort Bonifacio has turned into a tourist attraction not because of the tortures inflicted there on Filipinos during martial law, but because of its high-end restaurants.

Just as it is true that not all Germans were Nazis (see the movie Valkyrie), it is also obviously true that not all Spaniards hated the Chinese, not all Americans thought we were monkeys with no tails, not all Japanese condoned Fort Santiago, not all of the Marcos loyalists cheered the military torturers, and not all of our government officials today are turning a blind eye towards the government-sanctioned killings of ordinary citizens but, as the Auschwitz exhibit says, quoting George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

My blogs

2009-05-23T09:48:00.000+08:00

Simply put, blogging is addictive. I have five blogs, two of which are fast asleep, two barely breathing, and one awake and much too active.

The terribly active blog, which keeps me busy for a couple of hours a day, appeals only to writers and critics. Named LOL Literatures in Other Languages, the blog focuses on multilingual or mixed-language literary texts. I am trying to invent a literary theory that, until I think of a more catchy name, is called Multilingual Literary Criticism (MLC).

I have, so far, gotten the interest of polyglots that write texts not in their mother tongue (such as Cuban-Americans, expatriate Europeans, and Filipinos) or critics that are appalled at the lack of interest among literary scholars in the tradition of macaronic verse.

Although the most pressing need for MLC is for those reading mixed-language texts, which have become fashionable lately, I am arguing that even apparently monolingual texts are actually mixed-language. I took my cue from two writers who gave the same insight into their own works, but without knowing that the other had said it, too.

N.V.M. Gonzalez, in a lecture that I attended in California, declared to his American audience, “I write in Tagalog, using English words.” Bienvenido N. Santos, talking to me in Manila, said, “I write in Capampangan, using English words.” The two writers made an impression on me that has refused to go away. I now think that Philippine writers in English write in Tagalog, Ilocano, Cebuano, or whatever vernacular is their mother tongue, using English words.

By suggesting that Cuban-American writers write in Spanish, using English words, I have, so far, gained the interest of many Cuban-American writers, who agree that they “think in Spanish but write in English.” My European readers (bloggers call them “followers”) are less convinced; many of them do not know in which language they think, because they grew up with more than one mother tongue.

Sometimes wide awake but often on its siesta is my second blog, this one, Critic-at-Large, in which I put all sorts of stuff – sometimes my old columns, sometimes my speeches, sometimes position papers by the various groups I belong to.

In a blog, followers often engage in heated discussions related to a blog entry. One comment I made on Nikki Coseteng’s Diliman Preparatory School continues to generate widely-divergent opinions on the school’s experiments in basic education. The comments sometimes border on the libelous, so I often exercise my right as moderator not to upload extreme views. Despite my censorship, there are still more than 140 comments on that particular blog entry.

My other blogs are the barely breathing Filipino, the sleeping Philippine Fulbrighters, and the fast asleep Manila Critics Circle. The Fulbright blog will soon wake up, because I will upload the transcribed First Fulbright Seminar, which was on corruption. The MCC blog will also get up soon, because I will upload, as soon as they are available, the titles of the shortlisted books for the 2008 awards.

(Published in The Philippine Star, 14 May 2009)

FSGO on Jun Lozada

2009-05-02T05:47:00.000+08:00

STATEMENT ON THE ARREST OF JUN LOZADA (29 April 2009)

We, the Former Senior Government Officials (FSGO), condemn in the strongest terms the arrest of Engineer Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada, over flimsy and concocted perjury charges filed by PNR General Manager Michael T. Defensor against him. His arrest stands in stark contrast to the freedom and impunity enjoyed by such allies of the current regime accused of far greater offenses -- Jocelyn “Joc-joc” Bolante, Benjamin Abalos, Romulo Neri, Hernando B. Perez, Virgilio Garcillano, Jesus Martinez, Eliseo dela Paz, and others of similar notoriety.

The minions of the current regime find it all too easy to persecute to the fullest all those who expose its abuses, and oppose its corruption and bad governance. Whistleblowers are harassed and hounded, even as obvious prevaricators and practitioners of corruption are protected, promoted, and highly rewarded. What kind of message do we thus send to our people -- that good is punished and evil rewarded?

How have we as a people come to this state of things?

We call on Mike Defensor to stop posturing as if he is the aggrieved person, even as he was clearly a participant in the cover-up of what became an aborted abduction of Jun Lozada. What moral values does he hope to impart to his young children with his vain and obstinate defense of injured pride, while participating in the cover-up of gross abuses against our people and our laws?

Jun Lozada’s persecution demonstrates how truth has been sacrificed at the altar of immoderate greed. We enjoin all sectors of our society to protest Lozada’s incarceration in the strongest terms, and show to the world that we are not helpless in fighting for our rights and freedoms, that we have not, as a people, surrendered to evil.