The biggest threat to the economy is...

...THE SUDDEN end of the US Fed’s quantitative easing and rapid reversal of capital flows? A war with China over disputed territories in the West Philippine Sea? Thousands of OFWs in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the UAE, which have been hit by sinking oil prices being terminated and heading home?

No, no, and again no.

The biggest threat to the economy is not external and is not any of the above, but internal: the possible lack of fair and credible elections in 2016.

This will cause national political disunity and foster institutional and policy instability. If elected under a cloud, the next government will focus on fighting for political survival instead of addressing urgent economic issues.

When people ask me what is the source of the current economic boom, I tell them that it’s not Daang Matuwid, or fiscal prudence, or socioeconomic reform measures, or the It’s More Fun in the Philippines tourism campaign. The current above average growth rates the country is experiencing now are due to only one factor: the 2010 elections in which Benigno Aquino III got a clear and unmistakable mandate to govern as President.

That undisputed mandate -- and it’s undisputed because of his large margin over his next rival and because computerized elections for the first time enabled a winner to be proclaimed quickly -- enabled him to unite the country and tackle issues like corruption and malfeasance in office. Without that undisputed mandate, he wouldn’t have the political wherewithal to impeach a Supreme Court justice or pass a controversial Reproductive Health Law.

Contrast 2010 with the disputed election of 2004 and even further back, to the controversial assumption to the presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on the back of Edsa People Power 2 and the dubious Supreme Court decision declaring that former President Estrada had effectively resigned.

Former President Arroyo never had a clear political mandate and she spent much of her extended term corrupting institutions, such as the Church, the bureaucracy, Congress and the judiciary, and fending off threats to her rule -- from attempted coups to the Hyatt 10 mass Cabinet resignation -- to ensure her political survival. The country’s economic potential could not be achieved because politics got in the way. It’s therefore politics, and not economics, which is a strong predictor of economic performance.

Should we be concerned about 2016?

Certainly, the current controversy about the Commission on Elections’ (COMELEC) seeming favoritism for Smartmatic to handle the computerized elections in 2016 is a big cause for concern. Smartmatic got an easy pass the last time around because it was the country’s first nationwide computerized elections, and the margin between the winner and the runner-up was too large. Smartmatic’s less than exemplary performance could be ignored. However, doubts about Smartmatic’s technology, efficiency, and transparency never went away.

Therefore, COMELEC’s bulldozing over reasonable objections to the redeployment of Smartmatic’s technology could handicap the 2016 elections with a large cloud of doubt. That cloud of doubt may not matter in uncontested elections, but they do matter, especially if elections are close.

COMELEC could be seeding a time bomb in the belly of the economy if its choice of technology does not produce fair, orderly and credible elections in 2016.

Compounding this concern over COMELEC’s actuations is the current predicament of the governing Liberal Party. The LP doesn’t have a clear winnable candidate for 2016. Its “sentimental candidate,” Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, is a hard sell. Pre-election surveys put him in single-digit category.

Despite all the speculations, it’s unlikely that the Liberal Party will adopt Senator Grace Poe as its candidate, or that Senator Poe will embrace the Liberal Party. Many observers forget that it was the Liberal Party which conspired with former President Arroyo to rob Senator Poe’s father, Fernando Poe Jr., of the presidency (look up the “noted” legalisms of the LP leaders to swipe away attempts to reveal massive cheating). Can the Liberal party bigwigs really trust Senator Poe to protect them, or vice versa?

The Liberal Party, therefore, has few options, except perhaps to eliminate the opposition (Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, Bong Revilla, and Arroyo already jailed), and if he can’t be impeached or jailed, thrash Vice-President Jejomar Binay enough as to narrow his lead, and have a Liberal Party-controlled COMELEC make a difference. It’s a plausible scenario and this is the reason there must be vigilance in safeguarding the electoral process, for the sake of the economy.

However, there’s another element of possible political instability: the failure of President Aquino to apply Daang Matuwid to his own allies and friends.

Ousted Laguna Governor ER Ejercito was quoted as saying: “Masyado nang malalim ang atraso ng mga Aquino sa mga Ejercito. Tinanggal na ni Cory (Aquino, former president and Benigno’s mother) si Erap bilang mayor at presidente. Ngayon naman, tinanggal ako saka si Sen. Jinggoy. Selective justice. Bakit ang mga taga-Liberal Party, hindi nila ginagalaw? Bakit puro taga-oposisyon?”

Ejercito added that he wants to see President Aquino go to jail.

A little bit of history will help us understand why the failure of President Aquino to apply Daang Matuwid to his own allies and friends is such a destabilizing political factor.

In the pre-martial law era, the unwritten rule was that the two factions in the political elite (Nacionalista and Liberal) had alternate and equal chances at power. However, former President Marcos broke that rule when he became the first president to get reelected in 1969 by using “guns, goons and gold.” The consequent economic crisis and student protests gave then-President Marcos the pretext to declare martial law and essentially eliminate the opposition.

After the People’s Power Revolution, Cory Aquino restored the system of pre-martial law politics but even she recognized that the stability of traditional elite politics rests on giving the principal factions of the elite fair chances at power. She, therefore, allowed former First Lady Imelda Marcos and businessman Eduardo Cojuangco to return from exile and run for the presidential elections in 1992.

However, President Aquino may be breaking this unwritten rule by essentially eliminating the opposition, not through martial law as former President Marcos did, but by using Daang Matuwid applied one-sidedly.

The 2016 elections will therefore prove crucial to political stability and sustainability of economic growth. If all factions are given fair chances at power, and if the elected President has a clear and uncontested mandate, we will have political unity and an economic boom, irrespective of who is elected.

Calixto V. Chikiamco is a board director of the Institute for Development and Econometric Analysis.

idea.introspectiv@gmail.com

www.idea.org.ph

source:  Businessworld

EDITORIAL: Comelec Chair either has lost it or is a determined liar

WE watched Comelec Chairman Sixto Brilliantes yesterday morning talk to ABS-CBN News people, including broadcast icon Ted Failon, and saw how the Comelec Boss has either lost it and now has an addled brain or is a determined liar.

He biggest lie he said yesterday is that Smartmatic is the manufacturer of the PCOS machines. He said with aplomb that since this Venezuelan marketing company is the manufacturer of the Precinct Count Optical Scan machine then it is logical that it should be hired to repair them.

He seems to have forgotten or to have been brainwashed by Smartmatic’s wizard salesmen. The PCOS machines were first being manufactured in Taiwan by a company that could not continue the project. So Smartmatic had to find another manufacturer and had them made in China.

This has been the muddled and mendacious manner Chairman Brillantes has been conducting his discussions about Smartmatic, the PCOS machines, the defective way the ballots were read by the machines in the 2010 and 2013 elections, the defective way very many of the machines transmitted the defective and unverified count to the canvassing centers — in violation of our country’s laws.

He has also lied about the patriotic and courageous former Comelec Commissioner Gus Lagman. He said untruthfully that Mr. Lagman did not fight against Smartmatic and the Comelec decisions when Mr. Lagman was a commissioner.

Now we have confirmation–from the lips of Communications Secretary Coloma no less — that what we suspected is true. This is that–contrary to our Constitution’s warrant on independent constitutional institutions– Malacañang is in collusion with the Comelec in preparing to manage the 2016 election. This was something that Chairman Brillantes also admitted in his appearance on Ted Failon’s TV show yesterday morning.

Ted asked Mr. Brillantes if the President talks to, or consults him. He replied, Yes, I get consulted, but only once. Ted found that reply funny so, he sardonically asked, and switched on the laughter background, “Kinukonsulta kayo pero minsan lang, paano ba yan?” [The President habitually consults you, but only once–what kind of nonsense could that be?] Chairman Brillantes then explained that most of the time it is Justice Secretary Leila de Lima who talks to him for the president.

Secretary Coloma admitted on Monday in a lengthy press briefing that President Aquino’s Malacañang is behind the move to award Smartmatic the P1.2-billion contract to repair and refurbish the PCOS machines so they can be used in the 2016 elections. We Filipinos own the machines. Comelec bought them from Smartmatic for billions of pesos.

Chairman Brillantes clarified that the contract that Smartmatic has recently won is only to diagnose the existing machines. Smartmatic will be paid some P300 million for deciding if a machine should be scrapped or can still be repaired and what repairs must be done. He said if Smartmatic wins the contract to actually repair those machines needing reconditioning, the expense could go up to more than a billion pesos.

But former Comelec official Mel Magdamo, who has disclosed shenanigans committed by Comelec and Smartmatic, said that with the poll body’s P1.8 billion budget for the repairs the government should just buy a new set of machines.

To us, all these discussions about Smartmatic are nothing in the end but carabao dung. Because of the crimes and misrepresentation it has committed with Comelec blessings, this Venezuelan company does not deserve to have anything to do with our elections forever. The Philippine government should in fact be suing it.

But the combined power of the Palace, the Congress and Comelec will allow the poll body to repeat the anti-democratic manner the 2010 and 2013 elections were conducted.

We must pray hard that the Supreme Court justices continue to be patriots and declare illegal the automated election system implemented with PCOS machines by Smartmatic in 2010 and 2013 — and declare as well that the results are invalid because the safeguards were disabled and other requirements expressly stated by our laws were violated.

Yes, the sitting officials, the President included, can continue in office as de facto but illegal and illicit occupants of their offices.

The 2016 elections must be held without the farcical AES of Smartmatic and its PCOS machines

Otherwise, the people must rise and revolt against this criminal imposition on our electoral democracy.

source:  Manila Times

Comelec OKs recall vs Princesa Mayor

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has affirmed the sufficiency of the recall petition against Puerto Princesa Mayor Lucilo Bayron.

A reliable source said the Comelec en banc voted 6-0 to deny for lack of merit a motion to reconsider its earlier decision upholding the petition to recall the election of Bayron as mayor of Puerto Princesa, a gateway to the Palawan tourist destinations.

The Comelec though has yet to promulgate the decision and have it published for three weeks before a recall election can actually be held in the city.

A total of 40,409 registered voters signed the recall petition even when only 19,335 are needed for a recall election to push through. Bayron may remain as mayor if, in the recall election, he still remains as the person with the highest number of votes, which, in effect, affirms confidence in leadership.

In deciding on the case, the Comelec said that Bayron failed to offer sufficient basis for his allegations of fraud (in the gathering of signatures).

“He cannot solely rely on the fact that he won in the 2013 national and local elections to conclude that it was unlikely for the petitioners to obtain the number of signatories, as the majority of the voters have chosen him. The intervening period from the conduct of elections up to the time the signatures were gathered could have changed the perception of the people on their leader,” a portion of the un-promulgated decision reads.

It added that “Mayor Bayron simply cannot conclude fraud on the basis of his victory in the last election. On the contrary, it is presumed that the supporting petitioners affixed their signatures after reading the contents of the recall petition.”

Alroben Goh, who initiated the recall petition against Bayron, said that “the recall elections against Bayron will happen soon and won’t be stopped anymore.” Goh has charged Bayron in his petition of graft and corruption, nepotism, and worsening economy and peace and order, among others.

source:  Businessworld

Did Coloma accidentally tell the truth?

Since we are often lied to, we the media and the public should be glad and thankful when a public official or a politician tells the truth, even if only accidentally.

When this happens, bells peal and presses stop, so much so that US political pundit, Michael Kinsley, sought to register it as the Kinsley Law of gaffes — “A gaffe is when a politician (accidentally) tells the truth.” He said it first in the UK Guardian on January 14,1992.

Whoever owns the patent, gratitude is due Communications Secretary Sonny Coloma for accidentally (inadvertently, carelessly, mistakenly) revealing the truth that Malacañang is behind the scheme to award to Smartmatic the P1.2-billion contract to repair and augment the PCOS machines of the poll body for the 2016 elections. And what is more alarming, the Office of the President is meddling in the work of the constitutionally independent Commission on Elections (Comelec), and trying to influence the preparations for the 2016 elections.

Like stepping on quicksand
Coloma said it all at a press briefing last Monday. Had he been concise, certain journalists (women perhaps) could be forgiven if they hallucinated that it was all just a “Freudian slip” on his part. But the way the briefing developed, it was more like stepping on quicksand. With every point Coloma made and every elaboration he offered, the administration sank deeper into unconstitutional depths.

Coloma’s truth-telling is all the more astonishing because it was totally gratuitous. The Comelec can speak for itself, it has access to its own press corps, and it has an equally verbose spokesman in James Jimenez.

Until the Press Secretary let this cat out of the bag, no one knew that the administration was actively lobbying the Comelec to award the contract to Smartmatic. Everything was behind the scenes.

The Tribune report
Let us now turn to the substance of what the Press Secretary said, warts and all. I was not present at the news briefing; hence my information comes mainly from the detailed accounts of various Palace beat reporters, who quoted Coloma’s words like they were Shakespeare’s jewels.

Especially helpful for this column was the report in the Tribune of Joshua Labonera, which was most revealing.

Labonera reported the following:

1. Presidential Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said that Malacañang continues to lodge its trust in the Comelec on the use of the PCOS machines for the 2016 polls despite issues being raised on the contract to refurbish these machines.

2. Coloma went further, saying the reliability of the PCOS machines has been proven the 2010 and 2013 elections.

3. Coloma says “We have gone through two national elections in 2010 and 2013. There were no massive protests or uprising from the people against the results of the two elections.”

4. In fact, there were a lot of anomalies noted in 2010 and 2013. All safety features were not in place at all, thus making it easier to commit automated fraud.

5. A former commissioner, Gus Lagman, whose appointment was not renewed by President Aquino after he started to question the integrity and reliability of the PCOS machines, called the controversial new contract “a midnight deal with Smartmatic.”

Comelec awards, Palace justifies
The link between Malacañang and Comelec is shown in the glaring irregularity of Comelec’s failure to hold a public bidding on the contract.

In a statement, Comelec has contended that the decision to award the contract of refurbishing PCOS machines is in accordance with Executive Order 423 series of 2005 or the law prescribing the rules and procedures on the review and approval of all government contracts to conform with Republic Act no. 9184, otherwise known as the Government Procurement Reform Act.

Posing as a lawyer, Coloma says there should be a presumption that Comelec acted in accordance with the law. This presumption argument is a favorite ruse of Palace spokesmen to explain away wrongdoing in the Aquino administration. But serious lawyers say that this line of reasoning is absurd; no lawyer would raise it before the Supreme Court, sitting en banc.

Coloma’s accidental truth-telling exposes a violation of the constitutional provision on the Constitutional commissions in Article IX of the Constitution.

In Section 1, it reads “the constitutional commissions, which shall be independent, are the Civil Service Commission, the Commission on Elections and the Commission on Audit.”

The Aquino administration appears to believe that simply because the President has the power to appoint the chairman and members of these commissions, these bodies are mere extensions of the Office of the President. They are most emphatically not.

Appointed members may feel forever grateful to President Aquino for being appointed, and they may not care one whit about their independence. But the people care. This is a prerogative they are not at liberty to surrender.

When this reprehensible Smartmatic contract is finally heard and deliberated by the Supreme Court, we shall know what this independence means. I’m curious to see who will stand up to argue the position of the executive.

As things stand therefore, Coloma’s accidental truth-telling could be the nail that will send Smartmatic home to Venezuela. There will be no pabaon (parting gift) for Comelec chair Sixto Brillantes, when he retires next month.

Perhaps then we can attend to the necessary mending and overhaul of the Commission on Elections, before the nation holds the 2016 elections

yenmakabenta@yahoo.com

source:  Manila Times' Column of Yen Makabenta

SC to Comelec: Carry out Puerto Princesa recall elections

The High Court cites the Commission on Elections' fiscal autonomy and the chairman's power to augment items in its budget from savings to fund the exercise

MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) – The Supreme Court has ordered the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to conduct recall elections against Puerto Princesa City Mayor Lucilo Bayron.

Voting 12-0 on Tuesday, November 25, the Supreme Court en banc ruled in favor of petitioner Alroben Goh and set aside two Comelec resolutions that suspended all proceedings on pending recall petitions, including that in Puerto Princesa, due to lack of funds.

"We hold that the Comelec committed grave abuse of discretion in issuing Resolution Nos. 9864 and 9882," the SC decision said.

The Court cited the Comelec's fiscal autonomy, and the Comelec chairman's power to augment items in its budget from its savings. There is no need, therefore, to secure a supplemental budget from Congress to conduct recall elections in 2014, it said.

It also pointed to an existing line item appropriation in the 2014 national budget – in the "Programs" category of the poll body's budget – for the conduct of recall polls, which is among Comelec's constitutional mandates.

"Should the funds in the 2014 budget be deemed insufficient, the Comelec chairman "may exercise his authority to augment such line item appropriation from the Comelec's existing savings, as this augmentation is expressly authorized in the 2014 [General Appropriations Act]," the SC ruling said.

The Comelec has yet to receive a copy of the Court's decision as of posting time.

Goh, former Puerto Princesa City administrator, filed the recall petition against Bayron before the Comelec early this year, citing the "loss of trust and confidence" in him as city mayor. (Fast Facts: The recall process)

In April, through Comelec Resolution No. 9864, the Comelec certified the sufficiency of the petition, but suspended any proceeding in furtherance thereof – including the verification of signatures on the petition and the conduct of the recall election itself – due to lack of funds.

The following month, the Comelec issued Resolution No. 9882, suspending all proceedings on recall petitions until the funding issue is resolved.

On November 21, the poll body resumed taking up recall petitions by partially lifting its suspension order. In the case of the Puerto Princesa petition, the Comelec allowed Goh's request to publish the petition for 3 weeks. – Rappler.com

ER Ejercito ousted as Laguna governor

The Supreme Court has ruled to oust Laguna governor Emilio Ramon “ER” Ejercito.

The ruling affirmed the Commission on Elections (Comelec) order removing him from his post for overspending during the May 2013 polls.

During Tuesday’s regular deliberation of the SC en banc, with a unanimous vote of 12 Justices, it finally closed the door on the Laguna governor.

“The court, voting 12-0, [has] denied the petition filed by petitioner Emilio Ramon ‘ER’ Ejercito It thus upheld the May 1, 2014 resolution of public respondent Comelec en banc in SPA No. 13-306, which in turn upheld the September 26, 2013 resolution of the Comelec First Division which granted the petition for disqualification filed by private respondent Edgar San Luis,” the SC ruled.

Associate Justices Arturo Brion and Estela Perlas-Bernabe were on leave while Associate Justice Francis Jardeleza took no part for he entered the case when he was still the Solicitor General.

In its resolution, the Comelec ruled that Ejercito should be ousted from office for going beyond the campaign spending limit of P4.5 million.

He spent P23.56 million during the May 2013 gubernatorial race.

Ejercito said the mode of complaint filed by San Luis is erroneous since what was filed was for prosecution of election offenses, not a disqualification case.

He added that a disqualification case is a different proceeding and as such he is entitled to due process.

Ejercito also questioned the evidence presented against him—an advertising contract between ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. And Scenema Concept Intl. Inc.—which was not formally offered as evidence before the election court.

Also, he said he cannot be made liable for acts of a third party.

But all of these arguments were not bitten by the High Court.

source:  Manila Times

Ignoring the hard question

During the September 18, 2014 meeting of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee (JCOC) on the Automated Election System, I handed over a letter from Transparent Elections.org.ph to Atty.Himerio Garcia, who is the JCOC-AES Committee Secretary at the Senate. The letter was addressed to the committee, through Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, the committee’s chairman for the Senate.

Here’s the body of the letter:

“TransparentElections.org.ph is a group of mostly Information Technology (IT) practitioners who have had many years of experience in running the automated parallel counts of Namfrel. In 2006, a few of us were also invited to participate in the Technical Working Group that assisted the Senate in crafting the automation law, R.A. 9369. At this stage of the hearings, there are three issues that we would like to bring up to the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee (JCOC).

1. During the JCOC hearing of August 14, 2014, I asked the following question of the COMELEC:

Why does the COMELEC want to spend P18 billion on PCOS which only shortens the election process by half-a-day, yet removes the transparency in precinct-counting and seriously impairs the protest process. Certainly, the COMELEC knows that it is the automation of canvassing that shortens the process by some five weeks or so.

The only response I have heard so far – and this was from Chairman Brillantes – was that manual precinct-counting is not allowed by the automation law. We beg to disagree. The law says that the COMELEC is authorized to use an automated election system for the process of voting, counting of votes, and canvassing/consolidation and transmission of results. Surely, the chairman knows the difference between “authorized” and “mandated”. (Further explanation is given in the attached article.) We would like to hear valid answers and arguments from the COMELEC. It is only fair that they explain to the taxpaying public why they want to spend that large amount just to save twelve hours in the process.

2. In the resolution that was read by Chairman Louis Casambre of the COMELEC Advisory Council during a previous JCOC hearing, I take it that the CAC basically concurs with the COMELEC’s choice of technology for 2016, even as it allows for the testing of other technologies in the same election. We would like to request from them for a copy of the working papers they used in analyzing the various technologies available and arriving at what they believe could be the most appropriate one for 2016. We can provide the JCOC and the CAC a copy of our working papers, should they so require. The CAC has several IT practitioners as members and we would like to find out how our two conclusions—theirs and ours—could be so far apart, in fact, value-wise, more than P13 billion apart. This is such a huge amount that we believe it is worth it for JCOC to spend some time in investigating the details of the CAC’s, and our analyses. We might be wrong; or, they could be wrong. The taxpaying public would surely want to find out which one is right.

3. We are not vendors of election systems. But we know of a very simple, yet most appropriate, and very transparent system for the automation of our elections. We are offering this solution to the COMELEC, free of charge. We would like to be given a chance to present to the JCOC such system that will only cost the country P4 billion, maybe P5 billion maximum. Certainly, far, very far, from the P18 billion budget that the COMELEC is asking for. We would be ready to present it in the next JCOC hearing, if the Chairman will allow us.

(Just a point of comparison: The potential savings of more than P13 billion can provide some 130,000 houses to Yolanda victims @P100,000); or, enough fishing boats for fishermen and equipment for tradesmen who lost their only means of livelihood during the storm.)

Having shown how huge the numbers are, we are hoping that our requests would merit the approval of the Committee. Thank you.”

* * *

It is likely that newspaper columnists favoring the Smartmatic solution will argue that even the CAC endorses PCOS. This is the reason why we are now asking CAC for a copy of their working papers. It would be very interesting to find out how they justified their position. There’s a strong possibility that they are taking the easy way out by simply concurring with what Comelec wants. If so, then that would be betrayal of the public’s trust. (A little birdie told me that there wasn’t even the usual tabulation of pros and cons of each alternative technology.) By the way, the figure that’s being mentioned lately is P16 billion, not P18 billion. Whichever is correct, the number is still huge!

The last JCOC meeting was on September 18, 2014. The next meeting has not been scheduled yet. This is worrisome considering that Comelec seems bent on conducting the bidding BEFORE the scheduled retirement of Chairman Brillantes, Commissioners Tagle and Yusoph on February 2, 2015.

What’s the big hurry? For the 2010 elections, the contract was signed in July, 2009—less than a year before the May, 2010 elections. And that was the first time PCOS was going to be used!

source:  Manila Times Column of Gus Lagman, Former COMELEC Commissioner