Earth Hour

Ang kampanya para sa 'Earth Hour" noong nakaraang March 28 ay naging matagumpay lalo na sa Pilipinas kung saan pinakaraming siyudad at mga bayan ang sumali. Umaabot sa 650 na mga siyudad at bayan sa Piipinas ang nagpatay ng ilaw. Ayon sa estimasyon, sa Pilinas lamang ay nakatipid na ng aabot sa 611 Megawatts o katumbas ng pagpatay sa isang Coal-fueled Power Plant sa loob ng 60 na minuto.

Kahanga-hanga ang nagawa ng Pilipinas hindi lang sa paglahok kundi sa pangunguna pa sa aktibidad na layuning tugunan ang problema ng mundo sa global warming. Higit sa kung ano pa man, pinapakita ng paglahok ng mga Pilipino sa Earth Hour ang kamulatan ng Pilipino sa mga kagalayan na nakakaapekto sa buong mundo at ang kahandaan na tumugon at aktibong makilahok para sa kalutasan ng problema.

Ngunit, malayo pa sa isang kalutasan ang pagpatay ng ilaw sa buong mundo. Napakaliit lang ng impact kung tutuusin ng pagpatay ng ilaw ng mga karaniwang mamamayan para mapabagal global warming. Ang buong mundo ay nag-eemit ng, as per estimation noong 2004, 27,245,758, 000 metric tons ng carbon gas bawat taon. Ang simpleng pagpatay ng ilaw kahit ng buong mundo sa loob ng isang oras ay hindi sapat para solusyonan ito. Baka nga mas marami pang carbon gas na-emit para sa promotion ng Earth Hour kaysa sa natipid dahil dito.

Pero hindi naman talaga isang tahasang solusyon na ang Earth Hour kundi mas awareness campaign at political statement ng lahat ng taong nais sagipin ang ating planeta. Para itong march rally o pagpipiket o paglalagay ng ribbon sa damit upang magbigay ng statement na nakikiisa ang mga tao sa isang layunin o isang panawagan. Ang panawagan ng Earth Hour ay ang paghanap ng solusyon sa global warming pangunahin na nga ang pag-reduce sa carbon emission sa buong mundo na sanhi ng masyadong mabilis na pag-init ng daigdig. Kahit si Edward Norton ay nagsabi na isa lang itong symbolic na pakikisangkot.

Napaka-salimuot ng suliranin ng global warming at ang kalutasan ay masalimuot din. Ang usapin ay hindi lang environmental kundi political at economic. Ito ay dahil kakabit ng problema ay ang usapin ng pangunahing energy o fuel source ng buong mundo - oil, na siyempre, kakabit ng usapin ng kita ng mga korporasyon na may hawak sa source na ito. Siyempre, idagdag mo pa yung mga kumpanya na kumikita dahil sa produktong komukonsumo ng oil bilang fuel.

Ang siste, matagal nng nag-iingay ang mga siyentista at nga environmentalists tungkol sa global warming ngunit ngayon lang ito sineseryoso. Dahil yun sa hindi ito pinapansin ng mga higanteng korporasyon dahil sa masasagasaan ang kanilang economic interest. Tulad ng kaso ng electric car na pagkatapos ang paglabas ay ni-recall ng General Motors para lamang sirain dahil sa babangga ito sa interes ng oil indutries. Kadalasan kasi pinipiglan ng mga kapitalista ang teknolohiya kapag ito ay threat sa kanilang interes. Mas gusto nila na kontrolin muna ang teknolihiya upang siguraduhin na kikita sila mula dito. At habang kumikita pa sila sa luma ngunit paso o nakakasama nang teknolohiya, ito ang kanilang proprotektahan. Ngayon, nangunguna na ang mga energy corporations tulad ng Chevron sa paghahanap ng bagong energy source para kontrolin kung anumang bagong fuel source ang papalit sa oil.

Pera-pera pa rin ang usapan para sa mga kapitalista. Ang totoo niyan, sa ngayon, nasa kamay ng mga kapitalista ang hinaharap ng buong mundo dahil sa sila ang magpapasiya kung anong alternative fuel ang papalit sa oil at kung kelan ito papalitan. Hindi pa natin dinaragdag na sila rin ang may kaperahan para maghanap at magdevelop ng alternative fuel at iba pang pamamaraan para solusyonan ang global warming.

Ngunit, sa totoo lang, hindi ko makita na mareresolba natin ang suliranin ng global warming sa kamay ng mga kapitalista. Ang ibig kung sabihin, sa tingin ko, habang kapitalismo ang sistemang pang-ekonomiya sa nuong daigdig lalala lamang ang ating mga problema kasama na diyan ang global warming. Ito ay dahil katangian na mismo ng kapitalismo ang magkaroon ng anarchic na produksyon dahil hindi interes ang nagtutulak sa mg produkto kundi kita. Mahihiharapan ang mga kapitalsitang i-reconcile ang interes ng mundo sa interes ng kanilang bank accounts.

Isang planadong ekonomiya at paggamit ng teknolohiya at puspusang kagustuhan na maresolba ang mga isyu tulad ng global warming ang kailangan ng buong mundo ngayon. Kung saan ang interes ng mamamayan sa mundo ang nangunguna. At hindi ko nakikita yun sa isang kapitalistang sistema.

Kung anuman, kahanga-hanga pa rin iyong pakikisangkot ng mga Pilipino sa Earth Hour. Pinapatunayan lang nito kung gaano kahanda ang mga Pilipino upang humakbang para sa kalutasan ng mga suliranin gaano ito kalalaki.

Remember the Hello Garci Scandal

Ang pagsulpot ng Hello Garci Tapes ay nagsimula ng bagyo ng protesta laban kay Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Dahil sa kapit-tuko at tusong pamamaraan, nananatili pa rin si GMA sa puwesto. Ngunit, walang nakakalimot sa Hello Garci Scandal. Sa darating na automated election sa 2010, maaaring maulit muli ang ganun kagarapal na pandaraya. Ngayon nga lang, hindi na kailangan ang pagtawag sa isang Commissioner dahil mas mabilis na ang pandaraya.

Poll Automation may equal to Fraud Automation.

Here is CENPEG's Analysis on the COMELEC Poll Automation plan. It highlights the dangers that may come with the automation of election come 2010. Poll automation does not necessary mean cleaner, more honest election. We are in the Philippines, where politicians has master degrees in electoral fraud. For all we know, poll automation may only mean faster and more effective way of securing electoral positions for Trapos. Poll Automation may turn out to be Fraud automation.


ISSUE ANALYSIS No. 05
Series of 2009

Comelec’s poll automation will make fraud more dangerous

OMR creates the danger of placing the fate of the elections in the hands of a profit-oriented multinational company – the winning bidder – and on the Comelec which remains ill-prepared to run an election technology let alone in checking fraud.

By the Policy Study, Publication, and Advocacy (PSPA)
Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)
March 25, 2009

When at most 70 percent of some 50 million voters go to the polls on May 10, 2010, they won’t be able to track how their votes are counted or canvassed. Winners in the national and local elections led by a new president will be declared two or three days after – and the whole nation will be at a loss in knowing whether the election results are real. Protests may probably be hard to file not only because of a lack of paper trail but also for lack of time.

The trouble with the Precinct Count Optical Sensor (PCOS) adopted by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for use in the 2010 elections is that it does not guarantee an open, transparent, and credible automated system. Under the PCOS, the voter shades a ballot which s/he then drops inside a ballot box. Because voters are unfamiliar with the new technology voting will be slow and is extended to 6 p.m. after which all ballot boxes are brought to the precinct counting center – about 80,000 of them all over the country. Here, the ballots are fed into the optical mark reader (OMR) for counting and an election return (ER) is generated. The ERs are then electronically transmitted via the OMR simultaneously to the municipal, provincial, and national canvassing centers and, voila, the winners are proclaimed.

Engrossed with implementing RA 9369 which mandates the automation of elections, the Comelec appears to have glossed over the fact that Filipino voters have been looking for open, transparent, and credible elections. Making the counting and canvassing of election results fast may be a positive move which the poll body claims to be addressing. But unless elections are credible – which previous polls have been bereft of due to widespread fraud – then more and more voters will shy away from the polls.

Machine vulnerability

Poll automation feeds the wrong impression to the public that elections will be clean and credible. Because it is a machine, it is powerless against any fraud that takes place before, during, and after the elections. And, because it is just a machine, it is vulnerable to human intervention such as software attack, glitches, and other technical problems that could result in wholesale electronic cheating. (See www.cenpeg.org for papers and powerpoints on election automation.) The high stakes in the 2010 elections, including choosing a new president, administration attempts to make sure that the next president is friendly to Gloria M. Arroyo, as well as the 17,000 national and local seats up for grabs by some 90,000 candidates will make fraud machineries sabotage the whole electoral process using both the traditional and modern technology.

If pilot tests determine what technology makes for credible elections, then the conduct and results of the August 2008 Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) should make the OMR machine not suited for the coming polls. In that automated election, at least 23 common errors and other deficiencies were recorded in relation to the use of OMR and the Digital Recording Electronic (DRE). Based on the tests, the Comelec Advisory Council (CAC) in its October 2008 report found the poll body technically ill-equipped to meet the complexities of an automated election system (AES). Meanwhile, ARMM poll watchers conceded that open cheating was rampant in many precincts thus effectively influencing the outcome of the elections. Incidentally, multinationals Smartmatic and Avante whose technologies were tested in the ARMM polls are again making a bid for the P11.3 billion election automation equipment to be used in the May 2010 polls.

Given the expected operations of fraud machineries in the coming elections, one way by which the present Comelec can at least minimize cheating is to make poll automation open, transparent, credible, and participatory. It does not make sense that the poll body has chosen the OMR which makes counting and canvassing of votes invisible to the eye with Comelec perhaps hoping that the poll officials, machines, vendors, software developers, electronic transmission systems, and other technical services can be trusted.

The technology’s lack of transparent procedures and mechanisms make OMR vulnerable to fraud. Some Comelec commissioners admit that their schedule is tight thus making it inevitable that any delay in any of its calendared activities could damage the whole process. What this implies is that all the technological, human requirements and safeguards for the automated elections may not be in place on the eve of election. Serious technical and political implications are not remote.

Lacks transparency

The Comelec itself lacks transparency. Its hardline predisposition to adopt the OMR has prevented other groups not only from adequately presenting their critique of this technology but also from proposing other technologies which they believe is suitable to Philippine conditions while being compliant with RA 9369. According to sources, Comelec Chair Jose Melo has overruled the Open Election System (OES) being endorsed or supported by a former Comelec head, IT specialists, academic experts, and some political parties simply because it is not legally compliant with RA 9369 as far as full automation is concerned.

Had any of the commissioners and advisers given the OES proponents more time, then they would have found that, compared to the PCOS, this technology is more compliant with the AES law. OES uses manual voting and open counting at the precinct level and uses tested computer technology developed by Filipino software programmers for the encoding, transmission, canvassing, and consolidation of election returns. Its added advantage is the use of a public website where election data is constantly updated and posted for public tracking and monitoring; where figures can be verified against ERs not only by voters but also poll watchers, candidates, and political parties.
Aside from being cheaper and “cost effective” (P4 billion versus the PCOS’s P11.3 billion), it conforms to RA 9369 which promotes the use of “the most suitable technology of demonstrated capacity” as well as “transparency, credibility, fairness, and accuracy of elections.”

OMR creates the danger of placing the fate of the elections in the hands of a profit-oriented multinational company – the winning bidder – and on the Comelec which remains ill-prepared to run an election technology let alone in checking fraud. It even makes poll watching harder if not futile. Voters want to see the next polls entirely different from previous rigged elections – one that is people-participator y and where they can decide on the outcome. The open and transparent features of the OES at least make it equal to the voters’ democratic expectations.


Reference:

Bobby Tuazon
Director, Policy Study, Publication and Advocacy (PSPA)
Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)
TelFax +63-2 9299526; mobile phone: 0915-6418055
E-mail: issueanalysis2009@ cenpeg.org, cenpeg.info@gmail.com
http://www.cenpeg. org

Thai 'spider-man' rescues autistic boy

Natuwa lang ako. hahaha. I am a fan of spiderman and of true stories of heroism kaya reading this news just made me smile.

Thai 'spider-man' rescues autistic boy

BANGKOK (AFP) – A Thai fireman turned superhero when he dressed up as comic-book character Spider-Man to coax a frightened eight-year-old from a balcony, police said Tuesday.

Teachers at a special needs school in Bangkok alerted authorities on Monday when an autistic pupil, scared of attending his first day at school, sat out on the third-floor ledge and refused to come inside, a police sergeant told AFP.

Despite teachers' efforts to beckon the boy inside, he refused to budge until his mother mentioned her son's love of superheroes, prompting fireman Sonchai Yoosabai to take a novel approach to the problem.

The rescuer dashed back to his fire station and made a quick change into a Spider-Man costume before returning to the boy, he said.

"I told him Spider-Man is here to rescue you, no monsters are going to attack you and I told him to walk slowly towards me as running could be dangerous," Somchai told local television.

The young boy immediately stood up and walked into his rescuer's arms, police said.

Somchai said he keeps the Spider-Man costume and an outfit of Japanese television character Ultraman at the station in order to liven up school fire drills.