inside the monolith

So long, Mr. Secretary

2006-11-06T02:20:00.000-08:00

So Cruz quit. That's rough. I don't know him, but when we met during the MOA signing with the DND, he struck me as a pretty level-headed fellow who was sincere in his desire to revamp the image of the Armed Forces. But even if he weren't, the spectacle of an administration stalwart suddenly breaking ranks - just like Benipayo's departure - is a pretty sure sign that 'personal reasons' had nothing to do with it; and that the 'desire to rejoin the private sector' is just a half-full way of expressing the half-empty sentiment: 'I can no longer stand the government.'

Can't say I can blame him, though. But it's a damned shame, nonetheless.

A man of conviction can do alot inside the system he abhors; far more than he can when he's on the outside. I mean, being vocal about your disgust is the easy thing to do, especially for people like Dinky and all the rest. I mean, no one is gonna shoot them, right? And besides, they don't need the minimum wage. So, it's easy, safe, and earns mucho brownie points to vituperate about how sucky this government is. But, at the end of the day, what does all that vitriol accomplish?

In the months and months of the Hyatt 10 screaming at the top of their lungs, they haven't come close to accomplishing what their former colleague - Cruz - did with the COMELEC-DND MOA (assuming, of course, the MOA is allowed to operate as intended).

And it's even easier for us on the 'net - especially for those of us who choose to remain anonymous. We can criticize, we can snipe, we can huff and puff but in this country - where the blogosphere is still not as influential as it can be - the best we can really hope for is to gather a following of like minded people who will tell us that we are 'spot on' in our analysis, and the psychological and emotional satisfaction of having vented.

Much harder, I think, to swallow the anger, stay inside, and keep picking away at the cancer you see growing all around you. In the trenches, people don't sing praises to you, but you can fight for them nonetheless. Or you could choose to join the cancer. And the ability to make this choice - to keep on working for what you believe is good, or to just float with current - only makes it harder.

I am appreciative of Cruz's courage. But we need a man of his mettle and character INSIDE the system far more than we need another outspoken critic outside looking in. Unless, of course, he is that rare one who will actually PROVE how deep the rot goes, and in so proving finally bring down the purveyors of the rot.

I can dream, can't I?

Three Blind Mice

2006-11-02T07:38:00.000-08:00

According to the Tribune (whose headline has a screwy link), 3 Senators have jumped ship and joined Estrada's ticket; and that according to Estrada, his 'forgiveness' was key. True or not, by tomorrow, these Senators will probably be getting huzzahs from everyone in the opposition and they will be treated like gold. Probably. I hope not, but probably. And in all the celebration will be the lost the fact that, if true, this news is the saddest commentary yet on the state of Philippine politics.

If true, then we are witnessing nothing but people supposedly of principle (leaders we are supposed to look up to as the best and brightest of us) groveling and sacrificing principle on the altar of political ambition. It is sickening. Where are all the statesmen anymore?

And when people crow about how these Senators are finally seeing the light, or about how these Senators have gotten fed up with the administration that they are finally doing the right thing and standing up for all that is righteous - when people start saying these things, I hope they choke on the stupidity of their propaganda, because that's not what this is. This is only three people desperate to stay in power and doing everything they can - principles be damned - to do just that.

Because if these are truly men of principle, and they truly cannot stand their principal any longer, then they should either run as independents or simply disappear. They should not abandon one side and slink over to the side they had previously condemned. That would be too much like a dog going back to eat its own vomit. How can such men be respected?

Not that the administration is any better.

Malacañang yesterday threatened its political allies that they will face full consequences of their action if they decide to abandon the administration party and jump to the opposition ship for the May 2007 elections.

Full consequences if they abandon the admin and join the antis? As opposed to half the consequences if they only jump ship and not join the opposition? Seriously though, this is the kind of knee-jerk reaction that betrays just how politically immature these people are. Sure, they're wicked devious and savvy, but at bottom, they're nothing but a bunch of juvenile delinquents in a gang; wannabe Sopranos. And no, they're not statesmen either; not by a long shot.

The administration and the opposition are not even two sides of a coin. They are the same worn out, scarred, and twisted side - they're just in denial. The admin is trying to hold on to its troops with these stupid threats of repercussions, unwittingly revealing that their ranks are not held together by principle but by the promise of power and privilege; on the other hand, the opposition shows that it is not above influence peddling - dangling the promise of an electoral win. But the opposition forgets that people you win over by the promise of winnability will abandon you the minute someone else offers a better deal. It's kinda like mistresses believing that their lovers are faithful to them; hello! he's cheating on a woman to be with you, isn't he? What the hell makes you think he won't cheat on you? Stupid, really. And pathetic.

One of the cardinal rules of debate is that you cannot rely on the weakness of your opponent's arguments; your arguments have to be overwhelmingly stronger.

One of the cardinal rules of judicial ethics is that he who would judge others must himself be beyond reproach; you must be cleaner than those who you would call unclean.

To be considered better than someone, it's not enough that he is worse than you, you must be better. A true opposite, not just a lesser evil. If the opposition seriously wants to show that it is a better choice than the administration, then it is not enough that the admin is a screw-up, the opposition must be the better choice; not just a less screwed-up version.

And that means if the administration can only keep people by promising them power and privilege, then the opposition must attract people because they stand for something. People who make a stand and stick to it, even when it becomes the unpopular position. People who flit from one side to the other in the face of political adversity are the people who are governed, not by principle but by expediency. And the opposition - and the nation - must reject those losers.

Losers, like these three power-blinded mice.

More on Internet OAVoting

2006-11-01T19:40:00.000-08:00

Mong Palatino remined me that there are dangers attendant to internet voting. He posted this pretty informative article, which I passed on to the Committee on OAV. The folks at COAV were thankful enough for the input (thanks daw, mong) and explained the security side of the proposed move. I'll try to do the same, so here goes:

1. The system won't be using e-mail

2. The votes will be encrypted. Decryption is only possible with the use of an 'electronic key' that will be split into several components, with each member of a specially constituted Electoral Committee (composed of representatives from the COMELEC and political parties) holding one component. The key only becomes functional when a quorum of the Committee agree to recreate the key and thus surrender the component of the key in their possession. Thus, if the Committee had ten members, then each member would hold one segement of the password (or something). When 8 members agree that it's time to decrypt the votes - such as for counting purposes - these 8 members put their segments together and that'll be enough to start up the decryption process.

3. There will be a voting receipt based on a unique identifier, much like an automated teller machine (ATM), except that the voting receipt is unique and can only be generated once.

4. The voting receipt can also be used by the voter to verify - via a secure website (i think) - that his vote has been cast and counted.

As I write this, the COAV has already got some people putting their heads together to figure out how to improve the system further. As soon as I get wind of things, I'll be posting them up here.

Panganiban-lovefest

2006-10-31T21:19:00.001-08:00

There's a whole Panganiban-lovefest going on over at philippine commentary. DJB thinks that it would be good to have Panganiban run for Senate.

So what's wrong with that?

Nothing, I guess. After all, they seem to be letting anyone into Congress nowadays.

But DJB seems to be intent on missing my point. I don't care if Panganiban runs or doesn't. What irritates the hell out of me is how the Supreme Court has become a power-broker of sorts, courting both sides of the political divide as the need arises. Apparently, DJB does not share my discomfiture at the thought of Panganiban blindly ruling for GMA before he was Chief Justice and now bending himself into pretzels just to position himself for a run to power on the coattails of PI and the wave of opposition adoration. Panganiban was fortunate that Carpio already disposed of the need to be rational (although he too went overboard); all that Panganiban needed to do was to pontificate and unwittingly reveal that he was only really looking out for his own legacy. People who believe Panganiban was motivated only by the noblest motives are either idiots or unredeemably naive.

I don't mean he has to be grateful to the appointing authority; my beef is with the way he has clearly abused his position for personal advantage. Isn't the SC supposed to be better than that? Aren't SC Justices supposed to be held to a higher standard of behavior? Or have we all acceeded that political power - and the pursuit thereof - is the highest end? I know I sure as hell haven't agreed to any such thing.

OA Internet Voting

2006-10-30T21:45:00.000-08:00

This should make some people happy - I know it made me smile. I was hanging around the halls of the COMELEC today, doing my 'fly-on-the-wall' bit, and I heard the news that the Committee on Overseas Absentee Voting is looking into the feasibilty of piloting an internet voting system for 2007. Initially, the target areas are Hongkong, Singapore, Italy and the US, and possibly Australia. I don't know what the basis for choosing the pilot areas was, but I think it has something to do with the pervasiveness of internet access in those areas.

Hey raquel and geejay! Looks like they listened to your input after all! I sure hope they push through with Australia as a pilot area. If they do, maybe you can help spread the word!

Dud

2006-10-30T07:20:00.000-08:00

So the typhoon turned out to be something of a dud - well, in Manila anyway. Something that I'm thankful for.

Another dud, i think, will be this renewed frenzy to automate the 2007 polls. There's simply no time to do it anymore, I tell you; NO TIME.

Better by far to find some way to use information communication technology - or ICT - to enhance the transparency and efficiency of the whole process; rather than force the replacement of old methods with tech. We should not automate for automation's sake. That'll be like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Sure, you'll get the damned thing in if you push hard enough, but it'll be a terrible fit.

A Challenge to the COMELEC

2006-10-28T22:18:00.000-07:00

Good ole' Joseph.

But Estrada also hinted at a possible opposition boycott of the 2007 elections, as he also said that his party, the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) is still having second thoughts about participating in next year’s polls if it will be administered by the same Comelec officials that supervised the 2004 presidential election.
“The PMP will field candidates in the senatorial and local elections provided that there will be a new set of Comelec officials,” Estrada noted.
“That is my only condition. If there will (be) no total revamp of the Comelec, we’d rather not participate in the election,” he said.

Now there's a challenge you can really sink your teeth into, eh? How about it, ye lords of the COMELEC? The way I see it, you could either whine and bitch about how Estrada is trying to condition the minds of the public not to accept any outcome other than an UNO landslide (which he is doing), OR you can work doubly hard to show people that whatever the outcome is, it will be an outcome decided by the voters - with no intervention from us.

That's called credibility. And boy, do we have our work cut out for us.

inside the monolith

2006-10-28T11:04:00.000-07:00

The recent spate of outages over at blogger has finally convinced me to move to their new, beta, version. the change in the URL is minimal; just take out the hyphen: comelec-ako is now comelecako. I don't even know why i put that hyphen there in the first place, but now i'm glad i did.

i don't wanna have to move all my old posts, so i'm just putting up a link to comelecAKO (think of it as version 1.0, and this one as version 1.5. Hmm. 2.0 will be when i get my own domain, i think); once I figure out how to do that. Hahaha.

i'm also taking advantage of the move to put a new nuance on this whole blog, hence the new title. Also, comelecAKO2 just didn't sound right. that's like textspeak for comelec din ako. I don't know.

update: whew. it's 4:25 am, and I just finished putting up on this blog most of what's on comelecAKO. as for the rest, like the buttons and whatnot, i guess that'll just have to wait another day.

now, i hope people find this place. or all of this would have been for nuthin'.