Ex-Comelec Chair Andres Bautista and three executives of Smartmatic, Comelec’s IT service contractor, namely, president and GM Roger Alejandro Pinate, VP for external operations Jorge Miguel Vasquez, and VP for global services Elie Moreno, were indicted by a Florida federal grand jury for “bribery and money laundering.” (Manila Times, 10 August 2024)
Indicted is different from convicted. They still have to stand trial.
The vast implication of this news is that digital elections have resulted in massive cheating, and no longer reflect true vote results for several reasons, namely, 1) relatively invisible hi-tech cheating in cyberspace is not known and understood by the public, only by a few IT experts; 2) there may be a clandestine partnership between client and service contractor, namely, Comelec officials and Smartmatic; and 3) there may be related crimes committed by Comelec officials such as money laundering and accepting bribes, such as the Manila Times story above showed. In other words, a partnership of big-time criminals.
By reverting to analog elections, the massive invisible cheating is predicted to be reduced considerably, perhaps by even as much as 50 to 70 percent. We have to make the sacrifice of going back to the basics of crude documentation, relying on handwriting, but that is a lesser evil. The counting of election returns will of course take forever, like in the good old days, but it will be closer to the truth.
Global media, both traditional and social, exposed the election victories of Donald Trump and Marcos Jr. as the doing of the now defunct Cambridge Analytica. This implies the possibility then of the horror of “fake presidents” elected by cheating machines and technicians, not by the people.
Cambridge Analytica was quickly closed down, replaced by new names, with a lot of the old employees. The clandestine ability to alter election results for any nation worldwide is a now a reality. It is a trillion-dollar business that only powerful people can afford. And it is perhaps sadly irreversible. The only solution is the crude “back to analog elections” way.
But will the solons who make the laws promulgate legislation that will threaten their political power? Tell it to the marines. It is one monstrous conflict of interest that is very hard to get rid of. That is the dilemma of our present digital-election frenzy — the inevitability and conflict of interest of power politicians with big bucks. And this big bucks, mind you, is often lifted from government coffers of unlimited borrowed money to the delight of the big International lenders and their consortia.
There may be a silver lining. Can a truly honest President issue an EO or acquire emergency powers instead to maneuver against great odds? Do “honest Presidents,” who care more about the people than their own power maintenance, really exist? Are there such animals? It is a narrow path but it may work.
We live in an age of dilemmas – machine-generated election results, inevitable nuclear holocaust triggered by warriors who induce wars for money and power. We are at the mercy of mad warriors, greedy politicians, and greedy multinationals that control them.
We must resort to the few avenues available for containing the dilemma, that is all we can do. When we are helpless and desperate, we normally take the “last resort,” namely, the power of prayer, pleading for the hand of God to intervene for us.
In the end, the destiny of the human race and the planet are at stake.