Ducky Paredes

Malaya (12.23.05)
“Did the Supreme Court deliberately forbid the use of the voting machines in order to afford Gloria Arroyo a window for cheating in the 2004 elections?”

The CAC Should Study the SC’s Decisions

by Ducky Paredes

Gloria Arroyo’s anti-corruption adviser Tony Kwok is obviously in unfamiliar waters in the Philippines, yet he comes on like a loose cannon on the deck of some marauding pirate ship. This is what he said about the supposed campaign of Gloria to eradicate graft and corruption:
“I would like to blame you, the media — because it is very important that you should play a very active role in reporting the kind of things or good things that the government has done in fighting corruption, so that the public will be able to appreciate the effort of the government.”
To Kwok, what we bad boys in media keep on doing is that of pointing out the graft and corruption that is going on right under Tony Kwok’s nose, much of it with the knowledge and even consent of Gloria Arroyo herself.
Obviously, when Kwok was the anti-graft czar in Hongkong, the media in the crown colony lionized him and his efforts. We can do that too, of course, and we certainly will under the right conditions. That condition is that something is actually happening on the ground that will lead to the eradication of graft and corruption.

Philippine media’s main problem with Gloria has always been that while she makes great speeches about how great she is doing, there is really nothing to report about what is going on.
National Union of Journalists of the Philippines president Inday Varona points out that how media fights corruption is primarily by reporting on it. As to Kwok’s comments: “Hindi pwedeng tatabunan na lang natin ang mga katiwalian sa gobyerno (We cannot just cover up the irregularities in government).”
Newly-installed Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez agrees that, in the fight against corruption: “We recognize that the media is helping us.”
Tony Kwok ought to be told that it is actually very easy to get government’s anti-corruption efforts on our front pages. All that is needed is for the government to actually make the effort to eradicate graft and corruption – not through praise releases, but with actual work and actual on-the-ground results – not through overstated goals and over-ambitious targets.
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The Coalition Against Corruption (CAC) and other well-meaning NGOs are wrong to take the Supreme Court’s decision on the Comelec’s voting machines at face value.
This is still another group that is again asking that all top Comelec officials resign immediately for approving the failed P1.2 billion purchase of automated counting machines (ACMs). Their only reason for wanting this is that they firmly believe in the SC decision calling the purchase a tainted transaction and stating barefacedly that the machines failed all tests carried out on them and that, therefore, these machines should not be used in the 2004 elections.
The facts of the case do not bear this out.
If the Comelec had bought their machines from the losing bidder, the Comelec would have spent more money for machines (more than double the P1.2 billion actually earmarked by the Comelec) for machines that would deliver less than a third of the nationwide coverage that the successful bidder provided.
The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) tested each of the machines that were delivered and passed each machine with a 100% grade. The condition for paying the supplier was that the machines had to pass the DOST’s testing. Well, they did.
(The Supreme Court, in its decision, said that the machines did not pass the DOST testing. This is a clear fabrication and a total lie.)
Among the things that the CAC complains about is that the failed program exposed the country to great risks including the outright loss of funds for the procurement of ACMs and the return to manual counting during the 2004 national elections. To my mind, we can blame that — not on the Comelec — but on the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court’s hands are not clean on this issue. Did the Supreme Court deliberately twist the facts of the case to be able to forbid the use of the machines? Did the Supreme Court deliberately forbid the use of the voting machines in order to afford Gloria Arroyo a window for cheating in the 2004 elections since this was the only way that Gloria could win? With the machines, the results of the election would have been out 36 hours after the close of the polls. Results that quick could not have been subjected to a dagdag-bawas operation that is possible only under manual counting.
One has to ask the CAC why they were so quiet when it was the Supreme Court that was under the gun when the country wanted to look into the use of the funds of the judiciary during Chief Justice Davide’s impeachment?
If the CAC (whose membership includes the Bishops-Businessmens Conference, CODE-NGO, the Transparency and Accountability Network, Makati Business Club, Government Watch of the Ateneo School of Government, Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines and its National Secretariat for Social Action-Justice and Peace) is truly serious about fighting graft and corruption, it ought to look more closely at the SC and its decisions instead of treating every decision of the Court as if the Court were dispensing dogma and had powers of ex cathedra and of infallibility.
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I do not understand why the Office of the Solicitor General wants the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision ordering the government to pay the Philippine International Air Terminals Co.(PIATCo) P3.2 billion for building the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3.
Does the government want to take this without paying the owner of the building? Is that how low we have fallen?
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On my last column before Christmas, I wish all my readers a Merry Christmas!

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Readers who missed a column can go to http://ducky.paredes-ohana.org. Your reactions are welcome at duckyparedes@gmail.com.
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hvp (12.22.05)

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