“I don't think I would have become President if my mother was around,” President Benigno C. Aquino III said in paying tribute to his well-loved mother, the so-called “Icon of Philippine Democracy” whose death a year ago is remembered today.

“I would have just fulfilled my duties as Senator of the Republic,” Aquino added in an interview after the unveiling of his mother's giant photo mosaic at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila on Saturday.

Aquino said his mother being “the leader, the inspiration, and the guide” of Filipinos was a big loss for the country.

“So how do you rally everybody to the cause and the people if they are not united? I guess God really has very good plans for all of us so and this was a necessary step leading to the triumph of the people in the last elections,” he related.

The Chief Executive said he does not see the need to get out of the shadows of his parents, especially his mother whose death triggered calls for him to run as President in the May, 2010 polls. Aquino's father was the late Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.

“I think what I’ve always stated is that I am continuing the fight that both of them have rendered for the people. So why is there a need to reinvent the will, why is there a need to digress and diverge from what they were fighting for? What they were fighting for was right so I don’t see a need to move away from anything that they have fought for and if I failed in comparison to them, it’s fine with me as long as the end result is that their aspirations are achieved,” he said.

In his speech, Aquino on behalf of his family extended his “sincere thanks to everyone who participated in this photo mosaic project.”

“I hope we do not disappoint the representatives from the Guinness Book of World Records who are here to witness this tribute by the people to our mother, former President Cory Aquino," Aquino said referring to the 250 x 200 ft photo mosaic composed of 3,200 photos of the late President captured by photojournalist Revoli Cortez.

“When she passed away almost a year ago, I must admit that, at first, I was a bit concerned that public support for the principles that she stood for had waned over the years. Did they feel that their struggle for truth, justice, and freedom was still relevant to them? After her passing, who would continue the good fight?” Aquino said.

“However, I was more than reassured that the record numbers that flocked to the La Salle, Manila Cathedral, and the Manila Memorial Park to pay tribute to her and what she stood for. As we said, during our final goodbye when the nation joined us, it was an expression of tremendous love we did not expect – thousands of people patiently waiting in line, enduring hunger and fatigue, marching long distances, and coming together to escort her to her final resting place,” he added.

Aquino said “beyond expressing sympathy, it was a resurgence of hope and a realization that each of us has a role in alleviating our common burden. This mosaic of photographs is a symbol of that hope.”

Some people—fewer and fewer of them, to be sure—still refuse to let go of the theory that the elections last May 10 were rigged. This late in the day, they insist that the newfangled technology used for voting and the transmission of the votes had somehow been hacked and that the results of the elections do not reflect the people’s true will.

However, no one has come up with any real proof that massive cheating took place using the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines deployed in the last elections. You’d think that by now there would have been some evidence that cheating did take place; but there has been none that has been presented—and none that appears forthcoming, either.

On the other hand, we have noted the praise for what many are now calling the cleanest, fastest elections this country has ever seen in the century or so that we have been holding such political exercises. Tellingly, the compliments come mostly from the governments of other countries, from the United States and the European Union, where voting technology has long been in use, to the smallest countries that only wish they had employed the same systems to automate the vote.

Hereabouts, the doubters that remain fall into two categories: those who have a financial interest in competing technologies other than the one provided by Smartmatic and its local partner, and those who still cannot accept defeat, whether it be their own or that of their chosen candidates. There used to be a third category composed of those who distrust any sort of technology whatsoever, but their numbers have definitely dwindled in a society where more and more people live their lives with implicit trust in every conceivable sort of automation.

To the first group belong the people who have filed a case before the Ombudsman against the Commission on Elections and its automation contractor. The case filed by the Computer Society of the Philippines would have been a lot more credible, had it not been filed by a group whose head worked for a company that was offering its own automation system.

CSP is headed by Leo Quisumbing, former general manager of New Jersey-based Avante International Technology Inc. Avante joined last year’s bidding for Comelec’s automation system, offering its own “smart card” technology against Smartmatic’s PCOS platform, and lost.

But why would losers in the bidding still be alleging fraud, now that the elections are long over. Well, it seems that the companies that offer automated election solutions are looking ahead to the next polls and are trying to make sure than no long-term deal between Comelec and Smartmatic is signed.

Meanwhile, a former head of the same society, Gus Lagman, is also remembered for proposing a hybrid “open” system that features a combination of manual voting and tallying on the precinct level and computerized transmission to a centralized system. Lagman’s proposal was never seriously considered, even if it did raise eyebrows among observers who wondered why self-proclaimed IT experts seemed bent on delaying the inevitable scrapping of the much-maligned manual system of voting instead of proposing even more advanced systems than the one Smartmatic offered.

The second category is where election losers led by Mar Roxas and supporters of various other candidates who suffered the same fate belong. Roxas, at least, has filed a formal protest; the others have been content with passing on variations of a theme involving pre-programmed compact flash cards, computer software designed to misread or discard ballots en masse and the hijacking and substitution of votes as they are being transmitted to anyone who will still listen.

People who belong to either group often say that Comelec and Smartmatic must prove that their automated system did not fail, conveniently passing on a burden of proof that they really should bear. And because they themselves have not come up with conclusive proof of massive cheating and a failure of the system, they start sounding like conspiracy theorists instead of credible accusers.

The rest of us have already long moved on after the last elections—yes, even those of us whose candidates lost. And unless real evidence is presented to make us change our minds, we will probably remain convinced that the results of the last elections truly reflected the people’s will.

And it’s safe to say, as well, that the vast majority of Filipinos have embraced the automated election system and the results that it came up with last May. It is doubtful, now that they have seen how fast and reliable the results of the last polls were, if they will ever return to the unbelievably slow, fraud-prone and messy manual voting, tallying and transmission system of old.

Without proof to back up claims of massive, high-tech fraud, there is very little that can be done to invalidate the results of the elections last May. No less than the Supreme Court approved the awarding of the contract to Smartmatic, after evaluating the bidding process and accepting the results of accuracy and reliability tests conducted on the PCOS machines.

Congress will probably not act to question the results, either, since any investigation of the validity of the balloting will necessarily cast doubts on the individual victories of the current members of the House and the Senate. Our lawmakers being what they are, they cannot be expected to pick up the gun that will be used to shoot their own honorable selves with.

As for the people themselves, opinion poll after opinion poll has shown than an overwhelming majority of Filipinos agree with the results of the country’s first-ever nationwide automated elections. If anything, the aftermath of the last elections has been marked by the lack of protest actions alleging fraud, either on the national or the local level.

Having said all that, perhaps the new administration must now proceed to improve on the system of election automation instead of listening to the calls to go back to the old and discredited manual method. It can also seriously consider purchasing the PCOS machines of Smartmatic instead of just renting them, to save a lot of money.

The technology provider’s offer is certainly attractive. While the government spent P7.2 billion to lease more than 82,000 PCOS machines used last May, its contract with Smartmatic includes an option to purchase that will allow Comelec to use the units in subsequent elections for an additional P2 billion. If the machines are purchased outright, the government would spend about P4 billion to P5 billion more in succeeding polls, compared to the P11 billion spent last May 10.

The PCOS machines will not become obsolete, Smartmatic says, because software improvements will be installed to keep people who may have found a way to hack into the current system at bay. Also, deploying the same system in the 2013 elections would have the benefit of familiarity for Comelec’s election personnel, who have already been trained on the technology and who have actually used it in a national political exercise.

As for the conspiracy theorists, perhaps we should just let them be. Even if they don’t have any proof to speak of, their right to their opinion that the last elections were rigged is guaranteed by law, in much the same way that the people’s right to vote into office who they wish for is, as well. By: Jojo Robles

Charles Caleb Colton once said power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.

And just like the case of DJ Montano, the Philippines so-called “high society” is at it again with the very same key players involved…Prior to that, certain quarters had tried to give the local media the runaround (including Channel V’s JM Rodriguez, actor Jomari Yllana and actress Lovi Poe) by claiming that it was a namesake of the younger Singson who has been detained in Hong Kong.

Eventually, the suspect’s father felt compelled to confirm his son’s arrest. The elder Singson (a big bravo to Chavit) also virtually verified the congressman’s offense when he was quoted saying in several media interviews, “let this incident be a lesson to all”..!

OK, let’s give Rep. Ronald Singson of Ilocos Sur the benefit of the doubt. After all, it is not as though he has already been tried and found guilty of trying to bring cocaine and a couple of downers into Hong Kong.

The question, however, begs to be asked: What could possibly be the motive of the authorities in the Chinese special administrative region for charging Singson with drug trafficking?

The congressman was intercepted at the Customs area of Chek Lap Kok airport on July 11 while allegedly in possession of 26.1 grams of cocaine and two diazepam tablets.

Singson’s arrest, however, was made public only last week after his father, Gov. Luis “Chavit” Singson of Ilocos Sur, confirmed rumors about the congressman’s arrest.

Prior to that, certain quarters had tried to give the local media the runaround by claiming that it was a namesake of the younger Singson who has been detained in Hong Kong.

Eventually, the suspect’s father felt compelled to confirm his son’s arrest. The elder Singson also virtually verified the congressman’s offense when he was quoted saying in several media interviews, “let this incident be a lesson to all” or words to that effect.

If the initial findings of Hong Kong officials are correct, Singson made the grievous mistake of trying to bring illegal drugs into the former British colony, where China’s draconian laws against “narco-trafficking” have been enforced without fear or favor since the 1997 turnover.

Like many other countries, China is grappling with a worsening drug problem. The growing prosperity that the mainland is experiencing, especially on its economically dynamic east coast, has turned it into a lucrative market for so-called upscale narcotics, such as cocaine.

Cocaine is produced only in a handful of South American countries. Long regarded as the drug of choice of rich, young—and even middle-aged—Americans, it is also sought by their copycat counterparts in the increasingly prosperous countries of East Asia.

The recent interception of cocaine shipments in the waters off Samar island is a taken as a sign by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and equivalent authorities in other parts of Asia as a sign that the Philippines has become a major transshipment point of cocaine from South America.

With a street value running into hundreds of millions of pesos, the cocaine intercepted in Samar are far too expensive for most local addicts to afford, PDEA officials claimed. The drug shipment’s final destination was in all likelihood the increasingly wealthy—and self-indulgent—residents of China’s booming cities.

Singson’s camp has tried to minimize the gravity of his alleged crime by pointing out that he was found to be carrying “just a small amount” cocaine. Sources familiar with China’s legal system, however, warn the congressman’s relatives and friends against complacency.

China has long ascribed to an “exemplary” form of justice, meaning the authorities there tend to make examples out of offenders in order to discourage others who may be thinking of following suit.

Drug trafficking, in particular, carries a maximum sentence of death that is usually carried out with a single gunshot to the head. In fact, China is the world’s leading practitioner of capital punishment, which is meted out in cases ranging from murder to corruption.

As if that were not enough, the death convict’s family is expected to pay for the cost of the execution—including the price of the bullet—as well as the disposal of the corpse.

Equally disturbing is the probability that authorities at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport either failed to detect the contraband that was allegedly in Singson’s possession or looked the other way, literally.

News reports have quoted Jose Honrado, chief of the Manila International Airport Authority, as saying that Singson was frisked and “even took off his shoes” prior to boarding his flight to Hong Kong.

Honrado reportedly added that the congressman and his baggage also went through the airport’s scanning machines.

Other reports, however, indicated that Singson was “assisted” at the Centennial terminal’s inspection line by the gofer of an unnamed airport official.

The congressman may have been regarded as a VIP here, but overseas he is just another traveler. By Dan Mariano