This is the most tiring Philippine elections I've ever experienced. And they say its automated to make things easier? I wonder where was the easy part?
and as I said in my FB status - They ought to have made Philippine elections 2 days holiday - coz you spend one whole day waiting to vote, and you need one more day to recover from the exhausting experience.
although admittedly there were some problems in other parts of the country, when it came to the PCOS machines etc. automating this process is a good idea...but its not completely thought out.
like everything else, if it was just well planned in terms of process, it wouldn't be that way...where was the bottleneck?
if say theoretically, 1000 people are assigned to vote in a precinct, and all voted, and the voting time window was 12 hours, how could one process all those people in one classroom where probably only less than 10 people are seated?
where not all people take 10 minutes to fill out the ballot? where not all people take 2 minutes to sign up - look for their names, get verified, sign and affix thumbprint? where there was only 1 PCOS machine and I don't even know how many backup machines they had on hand in case of problems?
one friend had a nice status - 7 hours of waiting before she was able to cast her vote... of course you don't just hang around in the schools waiting for your turn, but heck, is this a reasonable expectation? I've heard of people part of my precinct coming in by 8 am to get their priority numbers...they went home etc. etc. came back around 2 pm...and their numbers were still in the 300s and only the 200s were called at that point...
As of 10:15 PM, about 45% of the votes cast have already been counted. That's fast! As a matter of fact, very fast! Gone are the days when I have to wait for the newspaper every morning for about a couple of weeks after election day just to see the running results. What we've just seen is really a great improvement from the past systems. Of course, there were some kinks here and there, machine problems, long queues, even instances of vote-buying and deadly poll violence. But I guess these have not put into question the credibility of the results. (I hope I have not spoken too soon).
a post I read which made me half-laugh, half-choke...
a repost from Gera Gupana (a high school batchmate) -
Schedule of Phil Holidays This Week:Monday - Election Day.Tuesday - Failure of Elections.Wednesday - Protest Rally.Thursday - People Power.Friday - Martial Law.
In an automated, computerized counting, you think that's fast? Dito sa amin, lahat ng machines are connected to a central station (by phone lines, landline, cellular, satellite) that keeps a running total as ballots are fed and counted. After the last ballot is fed, the winner is known, that is FAST. When the polling places close at 8 PM, a few minutes later the news broadcasts are already announcing the winners.
I heard that this PCOS machines cost P50,000.00 each, that's almost $1,000.00 each. Considering that they were made in China and computer parts are now cheap, somebody got very rich on this deal. And these machines are even prone to breakdowns and so finicky.
Yes, it is fast. But I was referring to this recent Philippines electoral exercise and I was comparing it with all the other elections in the past here in our country.
before, naka manual, it was faster to vote but took a long time to count and tally all votes
or now, na it too a very long time (generally speaking) to cast your vote, but the counting and summing up (assuming walang hanky panky) was so much faster than before...
her answer: whichever...e senior citizen ako..walang pila...LOL
Re manual vs. automated, wala talagang laban yung manual kung bilis ng act of voting ang pag-uusapan. In manual voting, you have to write the name of the candidates while in the automated, you just need to shade the oval space beside the name of the candidate. The long lines and delays in looking for names, and the apparent chaos outside the polling precints have always been attendant to all of the previous electoral exercise. As always, mali-it or masikip yung lugar ng botohan, even the roads or path leading to them are littered with vendors, improperly parked vehicles, etc. etc. And the 37 deg. C temperature all the more makes the entire scene so exhausting.
funny, yung manual before..it was fast actually (well, not the "after" part wherein there was the tallying of the votes).
granted, you have to write the names of the candidates, but the looking for names (where na precinct etc.) was actually not bad.
In less than 15 minutes usually I was finished in the manual version...and no waiting pa. I'd say it was probably due to more precincts, lesser votes to process per classroom..
I think it's in the tabulation where you'll get the payoff. It will be a lot faster getting the results, with less opportunities for the crooks to cheat, don't you think?
Learning curve on using the machine will be lower once everyone is familiar with its usage.
In this election, a new system was adopted, i.e. clustering of precints (in one location). Kaya naging masikip at magulo yung paghahanap ng pangalan. But the counting part is really faster than the manual which usually takes a week or longer.
the feeding of the ballot into the machine was fast...I wasn't around to witness though if there were instances where folks who got their ballots so dirtied up that the machine spit them out *imagines PCOS saying blah!*
maybe its paranoid of me, but I'd rather have a lot of those votes counted manually to compare with what the machine counted...as a programmer before, let's just say I am doubly aware of programs being written with malicious intent...
its a given to say the counting is faster...but is it accurate counting? is it correct counting? is it the right counting? am paranoid about the computers and the government....not that it has gone to the point of Big Brother watching me..more like...its not a perfect answer to circumventing cheating here.....or not manipulating results...
give us a break, BNK. this is our FIRST EVER automated election..and i am sure prone to all the birthing pains....we will be able to improve and hopefully perfect the process...
The BIRTHING PAINS could've been reduced had COMELEC done its job. I can't believe that up until the last couple of days before the elections COMELEC was still having all sorts of problems.
It is three days after the elections and we have the results. most of the presidential candidates except erap have conceded. nobody is really complaining about cheating. we have arrived!
A joke going around is that of an interview of Erap which goes this way: Interviewer: Sir, sina Villar, Teodoro, JC De los Reyes and Villanueva have all said that they concede. What about you? Erap: Sila siguro. Pero ako, I will never conceive!
still, I expected the election results to be in already by Wednesday latest at ma announce na...but well, with an archipelago like ours...
Chito, by any chance do you know if their processing means they will upload files from the storage cards (di ba CF ginamit) directly? or may encode-encode pa?
As I understand it, the PCOS itself where the CFC (compact flash cards) are mounted can transmit the info, i.e. votes read by the machine, directly to the main Comelec national servers via a modem within the PCOS machine itself.
The thing that is causing the delay are mainly a) weak or no transmission signals (sa cell phones and tawag dito "no network services"), b) some PCOS did not work properly during election day itself forcing some precints to do "manual" voting, which only means the ballots are filled up by the voters but are kept/filed somewhere outside the PCOS machine since it is not being accepted (this is what happened in the precint of Noynoy Aquino). Once the CFCs of these non-working machines have been "re-configured" (could be an hour or day long) only then can the paper ballots be fed to the PCOS machine which then reads and stores the data, and eventually transmits to the network (assuming there is a network signal).
While only less than 10% of these PCOS appears to have some kind of problems, candidates who are neck-to-neck in the races are looking forward to it as critical to their winning or losing. And since many of these problematic PCOS had some form of "human intervention" during the election day itself, doubts as to their veracity or genuineness are growing.
So, while there is a general agreement that the first-ever automated elections did not fail as some have predicted, it cannot be yet considered 100% successful. There are still allegations of cheating but it is no longer in the same "massive" degree as before. There is also no longer scenes of teachers guarding ballot boxes for fear that they will be snatched.
The final story of this elections is yet to be written.
thanks Chito for your answer above...expectation ko yata nasobrahan na matapos na by mid-week lahat lahat...
am looking forward to the future na ma setup na sya na parang ATM machine..once pumili ka..diretso na ...hopefully that day will come ...before 2016...and hopefully ma trim down na candidates...kung pwede lang sana may mga prerequisites they can fulfill at di lang popularity and name recall...
Ako din. I think I expected too much. When this whole thing started, they said that results would be known no later than 2AM the following day (Tuesday). Then they said it was to be completed by Wednesday. Then they revised it to Friday. In tonight's news the PPCRV says maybe Monday (may maybe na). Then of course we hear people say that nothing is yet final (in the national elections) until Congress convenes and actually and finally announces the winner (after a canvassing which I don't know how long will take). To begin with,Congress will not convene for this purpose earlier than May 31!
You can include this comment/suggestion in a Facebook account called Dear Noynoy. The FB account was created by an NGO (led by Gang Badoy) hoping to encourage the public to send their inputs to the President-apparent.
ah yes, natuwa ako non..na news kahapon....yung detractors of NoyNoy will somehow say something against the concept...but for me, mas ok nga yang ganon...kaysa puro games sa FB..question lang is babasahin at bigyan ba ng importansya ni Noynoy...
Actually, based on tonight's news update about it, the creator of the site (Gang Badoy) was saying na mas marami nga daw ang nag-post na mukhang kontra-Noynoy, threatening him with all sorts of opposition, e.g. rallies, etc. if ever he does not do certain things.
This is no different from a group who issued a press statement which said it will support the Noynoy presidency if it comes to lowering the prices of oil, increasing fares, increasing wages, halting military operations in the insurgents' areas, distributing land to the landless, etc., etc. But warns him of massive protest if he does not accede to any of their demands. I can smell political black-mail!
From personal knowledge Cat, and from what I've heard from others, Malacanang is a snake pit. You don't really know who is with you or against you. And power-brokers patrol the halls of power looking for the best deal. That's the (dirty) political reality in that hell-hole called the Office of the President.
But the attraction of power makes it one of, if not THE MOST, coveted elective position in our country. Of course there are those imbued with good intentions or pure heart. But they have to have a lot of encouragement and help from the people. That's why it is very important that every citizen is vigilant and actively involved in governance. If we remain passive and stay uninvolved, things are bound to go bad. You've heard, of course of the saying, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
And possibly the hottest, literally!
ReplyDeleteyep, thats true, had to do costume changes for this voting drama/comedy show coz of the hot weather...and...
ReplyDeleteI also almost became a hothead today too...lucky I left to eat something before I could really try knocking people's heads off - literally.
and as I said in my FB status - They ought to have made Philippine elections 2 days holiday - coz you spend one whole day waiting to vote, and you need one more day to recover from the exhausting experience.
ReplyDeleteDo you think it would have gone faster if it wasn't the new system?
ReplyDeleteHang in there. Hopefully, the counting will be quicker and less fraudulent. :-)
although admittedly there were some problems in other parts of the country, when it came to the PCOS machines etc. automating this process is a good idea...but its not completely thought out.
ReplyDeletelike everything else, if it was just well planned in terms of process, it wouldn't be that way...where was the bottleneck?
if say theoretically, 1000 people are assigned to vote in a precinct, and all voted, and the voting time window was 12 hours, how could one process all those people in
one classroom where probably only less than 10 people are seated?
where not all people take 10 minutes to fill out the ballot?
where not all people take 2 minutes to sign up - look for their names, get verified, sign and affix thumbprint?
where there was only 1 PCOS machine and I don't even know how many backup machines they had on hand in case of problems?
one friend had a nice status - 7 hours of waiting before she was able to cast her vote...
of course you don't just hang around in the schools waiting for your turn, but heck, is this a reasonable expectation?
I've heard of people part of my precinct coming in by 8 am to get their priority numbers...they went home etc. etc. came back around 2 pm...and their numbers were still in the 300s and only the 200s were called at that point...
I almost volunteered to be a senior citizen :-)
Hahaha!
ReplyDeleteThen the line would have been much longer with more scrutiny from the poll people. Chikahan na.
"What's your secret," they ask.
ahahaha..plantsa?
ReplyDeleteAs of 10:15 PM, about 45% of the votes cast have already been counted. That's fast! As a matter of fact, very fast! Gone are the days when I have to wait for the newspaper every morning for about a couple of weeks after election day just to see the running results. What we've just seen is really a great improvement from the past systems. Of course, there were some kinks here and there, machine problems, long queues, even instances of vote-buying and deadly poll violence. But I guess these have not put into question the credibility of the results. (I hope I have not spoken too soon).
ReplyDeletea post I read which made me half-laugh, half-choke...
ReplyDeletea repost from Gera Gupana (a high school batchmate) -
Schedule of Phil Holidays This Week:Monday - Election Day.Tuesday - Failure of Elections.Wednesday - Protest Rally.Thursday - People Power.Friday - Martial Law.
hmmm....and there I was reminding my mom only yesterday that I wonder where Estarada would be in this race...and now he is in 2nd place :-)
ReplyDeleteIn an automated, computerized counting, you think that's fast? Dito sa amin, lahat ng machines are connected to a central station (by phone lines, landline, cellular, satellite) that keeps a running total as ballots are fed and counted. After the last ballot is fed, the winner is known, that is FAST. When the polling places close at 8 PM, a few minutes later the news broadcasts are already announcing the winners.
ReplyDeleteI heard that this PCOS machines cost P50,000.00 each, that's almost $1,000.00 each. Considering that they were made in China and computer parts are now cheap, somebody got very rich on this deal. And these machines are even prone to breakdowns and so finicky.
Yes, it is fast. But I was referring to this recent Philippines electoral exercise and I was comparing it with all the other elections in the past here in our country.
ReplyDeleteI was asking my mom Chito which she preferred...
ReplyDeletebefore, naka manual, it was faster to vote but took a long time to count and tally all votes
or now, na it too a very long time (generally speaking) to cast your vote, but the counting and summing up (assuming walang hanky panky) was so much faster than before...
her answer: whichever...e senior citizen ako..walang pila...LOL
Re manual vs. automated, wala talagang laban yung manual kung bilis ng act of voting ang pag-uusapan. In manual voting, you have to write the name of the candidates while in the automated, you just need to shade the oval space beside the name of the candidate. The long lines and delays in looking for names, and the apparent chaos outside the polling precints have always been attendant to all of the previous electoral exercise. As always, mali-it or masikip yung lugar ng botohan, even the roads or path leading to them are littered with vendors, improperly parked vehicles, etc. etc. And the 37 deg. C temperature all the more makes the entire scene so exhausting.
ReplyDeletefunny, yung manual before..it was fast actually (well, not the "after" part wherein there was the tallying of the votes).
ReplyDeletegranted, you have to write the names of the candidates, but the looking for names (where na precinct etc.) was actually not bad.
In less than 15 minutes usually I was finished in the manual version...and no waiting pa. I'd say it was probably due to more precincts, lesser votes to process per classroom..
I think it's in the tabulation where you'll get the payoff. It will be a lot faster getting the results, with less opportunities for the crooks to cheat, don't you think?
ReplyDeleteLearning curve on using the machine will be lower once everyone is familiar with its usage.
In this election, a new system was adopted, i.e. clustering of precints (in one location). Kaya naging masikip at magulo yung paghahanap ng pangalan. But the counting part is really faster than the manual which usually takes a week or longer.
ReplyDeletethe feeding of the ballot into the machine was fast...I wasn't around to witness though if there were instances where folks who got their ballots so dirtied up that the machine spit them out *imagines PCOS saying blah!*
ReplyDeletemaybe its paranoid of me, but I'd rather have a lot of those votes counted manually to compare with what the machine counted...as a programmer before, let's just say I am doubly aware of programs being written with malicious intent...
its a given to say the counting is faster...but is it accurate counting? is it correct counting? is it the right counting? am paranoid about the computers and the government....not that it has gone to the point of Big Brother watching me..more like...its not a perfect answer to circumventing cheating here.....or not manipulating results...
ReplyDeletethey'll get things right the next time .... at least this time the results will be out in a few days CatH.
ReplyDeletegive us a break, BNK. this is our FIRST EVER automated election..and i am sure prone to all the birthing pains....we will be able to improve and hopefully perfect the process...
ReplyDeleteyes, that is where i am coming from too...it is good that we are getting the technology needed for the country to develop even more....
ReplyDeleteayos!
ReplyDeleteexactly!
ReplyDeleteyep, there has to be something good coming out of all of this :-)
ReplyDeleteat least we can claim automated na tayo :-) at di na mano-mano...ay those good ole days *wink*..sayang wala akong picture nila...
ReplyDeletegusto ko na rin mag claim na senior citizen eh...hehehe...
ReplyDeletebeats the results coming out in 3 months di ba ?? ... parang DRIVE THRU na ang election !!
ReplyDeleteThe BIRTHING PAINS could've been reduced had COMELEC done its job. I can't believe that up until the last couple of days before the elections COMELEC was still having all sorts of problems.
ReplyDeletecge, let's have more elections pa para ma perfect ang process....hehehe...you know practice makes perfect *wink*
ReplyDeleteIt is three days after the elections and we have the results. most of the presidential candidates except erap have conceded. nobody is really complaining about cheating. we have arrived!
ReplyDeleteall those doomsayers about failure of elections must be eating their words.
ReplyDeleteA joke going around is that of an interview of Erap which goes this way:
ReplyDeleteInterviewer: Sir, sina Villar, Teodoro, JC De los Reyes and Villanueva have all said that they concede. What about you?
Erap: Sila siguro. Pero ako, I will never conceive!
at may joke pa nabasa ko kanina...in short..Erap won't concede because the PCOS machine readout on the screen said "Congratulations!"
ReplyDeletestill, I expected the election results to be in already by Wednesday latest at ma announce na...but well, with an archipelago like ours...
ReplyDeleteChito, by any chance do you know if their processing means they will upload files from the storage cards (di ba CF ginamit) directly? or may encode-encode pa?
As I understand it, the PCOS itself where the CFC (compact flash cards) are mounted can transmit the info, i.e. votes read by the machine, directly to the main Comelec national servers via a modem within the PCOS machine itself.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that is causing the delay are mainly a) weak or no transmission signals (sa cell phones and tawag dito "no network services"), b) some PCOS did not work properly during election day itself forcing some precints to do "manual" voting, which only means the ballots are filled up by the voters but are kept/filed somewhere outside the PCOS machine since it is not being accepted (this is what happened in the precint of Noynoy Aquino). Once the CFCs of these non-working machines have been "re-configured" (could be an hour or day long) only then can the paper ballots be fed to the PCOS machine which then reads and stores the data, and eventually transmits to the network (assuming there is a network signal).
While only less than 10% of these PCOS appears to have some kind of problems, candidates who are neck-to-neck in the races are looking forward to it as critical to their winning or losing. And since many of these problematic PCOS had some form of "human intervention" during the election day itself, doubts as to their veracity or genuineness are growing.
So, while there is a general agreement that the first-ever automated elections did not fail as some have predicted, it cannot be yet considered 100% successful. There are still allegations of cheating but it is no longer in the same "massive" degree as before. There is also no longer scenes of teachers guarding ballot boxes for fear that they will be snatched.
The final story of this elections is yet to be written.
thanks Chito for your answer above...expectation ko yata nasobrahan na matapos na by mid-week lahat lahat...
ReplyDeleteam looking forward to the future na ma setup na sya na parang ATM machine..once pumili ka..diretso na ...hopefully that day will come ...before 2016...and hopefully ma trim down na candidates...kung pwede lang sana may mga prerequisites they can fulfill at di lang popularity and name recall...
Ako din. I think I expected too much. When this whole thing started, they said that results would be known no later than 2AM the following day (Tuesday). Then they said it was to be completed by Wednesday. Then they revised it to Friday. In tonight's news the PPCRV says maybe Monday (may maybe na). Then of course we hear people say that nothing is yet final (in the national elections) until Congress convenes and actually and finally announces the winner (after a canvassing which I don't know how long will take). To begin with,Congress will not convene for this purpose earlier than May 31!
ReplyDeleteYou can include this comment/suggestion in a Facebook account called Dear Noynoy. The FB account was created by an NGO (led by Gang Badoy) hoping to encourage the public to send their inputs to the President-apparent.
ReplyDeleteI was just commenting to my reflection when brushing my teeth while listening to the tv - e parang manual counting din ang labas nito ah...
ReplyDeleteah yes, natuwa ako non..na news kahapon....yung detractors of NoyNoy will somehow say something against the concept...but for me, mas ok nga yang ganon...kaysa puro games sa FB..question lang is babasahin at bigyan ba ng importansya ni Noynoy...
ReplyDeleteActually, based on tonight's news update about it, the creator of the site (Gang Badoy) was saying na mas marami nga daw ang nag-post na mukhang kontra-Noynoy, threatening him with all sorts of opposition, e.g. rallies, etc. if ever he does not do certain things.
ReplyDeleteThis is no different from a group who issued a press statement which said it will support the Noynoy presidency if it comes to lowering the prices of oil, increasing fares, increasing wages, halting military operations in the insurgents' areas, distributing land to the landless, etc., etc. But warns him of massive protest if he does not accede to any of their demands. I can smell political black-mail!
diosme..and people spend money to be put on that kind of position...tsk..tsk...
ReplyDeletema remember ko tuloy si Dolphy...madaling tumakbo..pano kung manalo?
abah..e di yung mga hangers on and ibang sharks dyan, lalapit para pagdesquitahan ang nanalo...yummm...
From personal knowledge Cat, and from what I've heard from others, Malacanang is a snake pit. You don't really know who is with you or against you. And power-brokers patrol the halls of power looking for the best deal. That's the (dirty) political reality in that hell-hole called the Office of the President.
ReplyDeleteBut the attraction of power makes it one of, if not THE MOST, coveted elective position in our country. Of course there are those imbued with good intentions or pure heart. But they have to have a lot of encouragement and help from the people. That's why it is very important that every citizen is vigilant and actively involved in governance. If we remain passive and stay uninvolved, things are bound to go bad. You've heard, of course of the saying, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
e di ba ganon din kaya sa ibang OP? politics is a dirty, bad, bad snake :-)
ReplyDelete