Gibo asks Melo for Plan B

from The Manila Times
http://manilatimes.net/index.php/top-stories/11625-gibo-asks-melo-for-plan-b


Comelec dared on automated polls

Former Defense Secretary Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro on Monday challenged Chairman Jose Melo of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to be honest to the people on whether it could undertake the country’s supposedly first fully automated polls and whether the poll body has any back-up plan should the automation process fail.

During the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (Focap)’s 13th Annual Prospects for the Philippines forum held at the Mandarin Hotel in Makati City (Metro Manila) on Monday, Teodoro said that the Comelec should not keep the public in the dark on the computerized May 2010 elections.

He was one of the seven presidential candidates who showed up in the Focap forum. The others were Senators Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino 3rd, Richard “Dick” Gordon, and Jamby Madrigal; religious leader Eddie Villanueva; environmentalist Nicanor Perlas; and Councilor John Carlos de los Reyes of Olongapo City (Zambales).

“As an outsider looking in, naturally I have my doubts. It is incumbent upon the Comelec to really disclose an honest-to-goodness appraisal of what they cannot do and what we should expect from them [poll body],” Teodoro, the standard-bearer of the Lakas-Kampi Christian Muslim Democrats (CMD), said.

He added that the Comelec should do more to make the public aware of the problems, if any, facing the automation of the presidential elections.

“The last machines will be delivered only at the end of this month and they [Comelec] are going to use them [machines] in May 2010,” Teodoro said, referring to the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines that would be shipped from China.

“The teachers will be only trained one month before [the balloting]. It [automation] is an ambitious project nationwide where ensuring that the mechanisms will work is quite [a big job],” he pointed out.

When asked whether there should be a back-up plan for possible glitches of the automated polls, Teodoro said that the Comelec should come up with one “as soon as possible” and that areas that would experience problems should be pinpointed.

Stand on dynasties
During the Focap forum, the seven presidential candidates revealed their views on political dynasties, the reinvestigation of the 2004 “Hello, Garci” scandal, imposing new taxes, reopening of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant and the Visiting Forces Agreement between the US and the Philippines.

Aquino sounded soft on political dynasties, saying politicians should be judged according to their performance, not on their surnames.

“It’s like judges being related to political powers, there used to be a ban on that,” the Liberal Party (LP) bet said.

Teodoro said that political parties should be allowed to back the appropriate candidates to defeat political dynasties rather than disqualify people just because of family ties.

“The solution is through campaign finance reform,” he added.

Villanueva’s take: “If the wealth of the nation can be controlled by a few families, this is a dangerous trend that might drive the country toward chaos and social strife.”

The Constitution prohibits political dynasties, although Congress has not enacted a law on that matter.

On the “Hello, Garci” scandal that linked President Gloria Arroyo to alleged fraud in the 2004 elections, Aquino said, “If we are not able to put closure [to that], then we perpetuate the problems.”

De los Reyes and Madrigal agreed with Aquino.

“We cannot play blind and be a country in denial. We need closure for history to move forward,” Madrigal said.

“It is hard to believe that FPJ [Fernando Poe Jr.] did not get even a single vote in Maguindanao, and if this is the way we are to conduct elections in this country, we might as well forget our future, our generation,” de los Reyes of Ang Kapatiran said.

He was referring to the opposition standard-bearer in the 2004 balloting whose supporters claimed was cheated not only in Maguindanao but also in many other parts of the country.

For Perlas, reopening the “Hello, Garci” case and laying it to rest is “part of a larger process of moral and effective governance.”

Gordon, however, said that the country should concentrate on other problems and move forward. “We cannot be looking backward and stumbling forward.”

The administration bet, Teodoro, said that an independent body should look into the “Hello, Garci” scandal.

No to nuclear plant
The presidential bets agreed on one thing—that the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant should not be operated.

Madrigal said that reopening the nuclear power plant would be “paying homage to a Marcos folly” and referred to it as the “original ZTE” or the national broadband network project, which was allegedly riddled with anomalies. ZTE is ZTE Corp. of China, with whom Manila had signed a contract for the $330-million project. President Arroyo scrapped the deal over allegations of corruption.

“If we are to go green, we should go green all the way and not adopt technology in the 1950s and 1960s,” the senator added.

Though he opposed the reopening of the nuclear plant, Gordon said that the government should not close its doors on nuclear power.

“We are not closing our minds to the possibility of having nuclear power plants along the way, provided that absolute safety nets are properly provided for the massive economic development programs in the country,” Villanueva said.

Teodoro proposed that a suitable location for a new nuclear power plant in the country be studied.

Perlas, however, said that reviving the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is “going to be a major mistake.”

Villar blasts Liberal Party
Meanwhile, Sen. Manuel “Manny” Villar Jr., the presidential candidate of the Nacionalista Party (NP), also on Monday said that the platform of the Liberal Party contains nothing but promises when viewed against what it has done.

“It only takes a good writer to come up with an excellent program of government. But this program will be nothing but election promises if mouthed by a candidate with no track record of accomplishing anything substantial,” Villar, who was absent from the Focap forum, explained.

He said that leaders who have been working hard all their life to reach their status at present should be chosen over those who have been dependent on their parents for almost their entire life, apparently alluding to Noynoy.

Villar’s running mate, Sen. Loren Legarda, agreed, saying that the LP was being led by “promising men.”

NP senatorial candidate Gilbert Remulla even said whatever promises the Liberal Party are making to improve the lives of Filipinos should be taken with a grain of salt.

“At one point in time, the Liberals lorded it over the Anti-Poverty and Economic Clusters of GMA [Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo] Cabinet, with billions of pesos at their disposal. Whatever economic crisis and crippling poverty situation we have right now, the Liberals are to blame. They played with the peoples billions, nothing happened,” Remulla added.

He identified the LP members who held Cabinet positions under President Arroyo as Ralph Recto (National Economic and Development Authority), Florencio Abad (Department of Education), Corazon Soliman (Department of Social Welfare and Development), Manuel “Mar” Roxas 2nd (Department of Trade and Industry), Teresita Quintos Deles (National Anti-Poverty Commission, Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process), Jose Lina (Department of Interior and Local Government), Rene Villa (Department of Agrarian Reform), Juan Santos (Department of Trade and Industry), Cesar Purisima (Department of Finance), Avelino Cruz (Department of National Defense) and Imelda Nicolas (National Anti-Poverty Commission).

Roxas is the running mate of Noynoy.

Remulla said that Soliman started off with a P1.7-billion budget in her tenure but poverty incidence was worst during her term based on indicators of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

He added that the “glaring imbalance” of conditions in Metro Manila and in the poor provinces in Mindanao “reflected the failure of the Department of Trade and Industry, then under Roxas, which promised to infuse multibillion-pesos worth of investments in the country, particularly in Mindanao.”

Remulla noted that in the first three years of the Liberal Party in the Arroyo Cabinet from 2001 to 2003, neighboring countries were attracting foreign direct investments while foreign investors in the Philippines were moving out.

He said that although former Education chief Abad was given P94.45 billion in 2004 to improve the country’s education system, the UNDP assessment report showed that the number of children who failed to finish primary school was steadily increasing.
Jefferson Antiporda, Cris G. Odronia and Efren L. Danao