LIFE’S INSPIRATIONS: “…`Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels’…” (Luke 9:26, the Holy Bible).
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NO WAY OF KNOWING TRUE 2016 POLL RESULTS? If I am to believe the claims, made in public yet by lawyer Rey Quilala, a former legal officer at the office of Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, there is no way that the Filipino people can be assured of the truthfulness of the results of the 2016 national and local elections.
Quilala disclosed that while Smartmatic Philippines Inc. is saying that the automated system it is employing in the 2016 elections (which it likewise employed during the 2010 and 2013 elections) is as secure as the systems being employed by international banks, it has been shown by recent events, particularly the theft of some US $100 million from the US Federal Reserve Bank in New York, that these systems are capable of being hacked and manipulated.
That being the case, Quilala in effect raised grave doubts that the true will of the Filipino people, especially on the president and vice president that are to lead this country in the next years, may not be reflected in the results that the Commission on Election will use to proclaim the winning candidates. Wow! Truly disturbing, and truly discouraging.
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13 M VOTERS DISENFRANCHISED IN 2013 POLLS: Quilala also confirmed that in the 2013 elections which was conducted using the technology provided for by Smartmatic Philippines, Inc., some 13 million or so votes were not included in the determination of who really won as senators in that political exercise, because of a failure of transmission that hit the computers that were used then.
Indeed, 13 million votes is 13 million votes, enough to affect the entire outcome of that midterm elections. I do not wish to speculate now on who could be considered as having truly won as senator at that time, but the point is that, if a computer system such as the one which Smartmatic used in 2013 failed to include in its final tally 13 million votes, must we trust that system again in 2016?
What is more, Quilala said he and other lawyers were treated to the spectacle of their cellphones losing their signal at the “command” of computer experts from a country known as “Estonia”, with their systems being cloned to send messages or data which the phone owners did not really send or transmitted.
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WHY ARE PRESIDENTIABLES SILENT OVER COMPUTER FRAUD? This sent shockwaves to those who listened to Quilala, when they realized that it is really possible to jam the signals of Smartmatic’s computers and then, making it appear that those computers are sending results to the different canvassing boards in the country and, ultimately, to the national canvassing agencies who are tasked to tally the votes and then proclaim the supposedly winning candidates.
The question, of course, is: if these computer maneuvers can be demonstrated to distort even the computers which are being used in our forthcoming elections, how come no one seems to be truly interested to find a solution to prevent election fraud using information technology?
I am of course referring to the presidential candidates who are now locked in a very tight race for the top spot, but who seem oblivious to these problems (which to me is simply unacceptable) or who are outright ignorant of how these problems can affect their candidacies. Why the inaction, ladies and gentlemen? Indeed, these candidates owe their voters the duty to safeguard the vote of every citizen!
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PLEASE LISTEN: “Ang Tanging Daan” (The Sole Way): a Bible study and prayer session online could now be heard, 24 HOURS a day, in the Philippines and the world at www.facebook.com/angtangingdaan or www.facebook.com/ANDKNK (and look for “Ang Tanging Daan” broadcasts). Phone: 0922 833 43 96, 0918 574 0193, 0977 805 9058. Email: batasmauricio@yahoo.com.
