The Ombudsman came out with a report that the party list CIBAC thru its representatives kept quoting throughout this 2022 election campaign. The Ombudsman stated that twenty percent (20%) of the Philippines' national budget actually goes to the pockets of corrupt individuals and entities. So, if we have a Php5 trillion budget, Php1 trillion pesos are illegally channeled from the government coffers to these people, contributing to the miserable lack of funding for government needed projects in education, health, food security, agriculture, infrastructure, research and development, and all the basic services that States are legally bound to give to the people.
As we near the May 9, 2022 national elections, I am purposefully reminded by the Biblical advice given to Moses, by his father-in-law, Jethro:
The Philippine Computer Society (PCS) Members' 2016 Exposé and the Apparent Ongoing Representation/s of Automated Election Rigging
Unfortunately, corruption is very much part of the automated elections. In January 11, 2016, I was invited at first, to be a reactor, and then a de facto speaker at the continuing education seminars of the PDP-Laban party, at the invitation of the San Beda lawyers group that supported current President Duterte. The event was held in the afternoon at the Waling Waling Room, Club Filipino, Greenhills, San Juan City, Metro Manila. As I found out later, I was supposed to react to an exposé that will be shared by two members of the PCS, of which I too, was a member for many years, and to share some of the findings I have unearthed in my then soon to be published book "Cryptology: The Law and Science of Electronic Secrets and Codes".
It turned out that the 2 PCS members were Mr. Leo Querubin, and the election lawyer Atty. Glen Chong. For over an hour or so, I listened with great interest and disgust at their story of certain group/s apparently deeply connected, who were approaching candidates and political parties, offering, and guaranteeing their chances of winning the automated elections, for the right price of course, and even ensuring the margin of winnings of any candidate, again depending on the price. The two PCS members evidently investigated the claims of these group/s and found that they have the apparent technological and logistic means to back up their offers and guarantees. The PCS members did not name any names of the group/s or specific individuals, but they gave the impression from their exposition that these people and entities are known in political circles. I thought for sure that the lid on this would be blown right after the event. But nothing happened.
This was not the only time that this matter had been raised. In the 2019 and 2022 election campaigns, several candidates have asked me about this, since they claimed they have all been approached by such group/s. They would not disclose to me the names of the persons involved, but that some of them are lawyers who act as frontliners or mediators. I had challenged these politicians to publicly disclose these group/s or people but they are not willing to do so. From a political standpoint, disclosure would be tantamount to being a pariah and would run counter to the Machiavellian ethic that politics is amoral and any means necessary to win is useful, justifiable, and thus must be pursued, or at least not stopped, to be made available for those who have a use for these group/s. As long as this view pervades, and no politician steps in to expose these people who approached the, or with whom they have actually dealt with, we will not see an end to their activities.
And this is another reason why the existing automated election system (AES) should actually be discarded. These people/groups have made, and continue to create their fortunes, by kickstarting fraudulent political wins with their nefarious familiarity and manipulation of the current AES. Those who buy in to these groups' enterprise, defeat the true electorate will. And it is no stretch of the imagination to posit, that by paying for their false wins, these "winners" will take from the public coffers, what they gave to these group/s, and so much more, after three or six years of being in public office! It is a perpetuation of an abominable horrific system that quite a few people are willing to close their eyes, for the sake of political convenience and survival. Let us trust that those candidates who have actually espoused fighting corruption as their platform, and who win legitimately, would probe this matter, end these groups' existence and virulence, and pursue the establishment of a new AES that would be resistant to fraudulent manipulation of invested entities and groups.
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