Category: elections

Confusing the enemy … and themselves

By Greg B. Macabenta

CONFUSING THE enemy is an established tactic in warfare. Sun Tsu’s Art of War and Nicolo Machiavelli’s The Prince mentioned this as one effective means of making the enemy off-balance and vulnerable.

Going by recent public pronouncements and “slips of the tongue” coming out in the media, one wonders if the Liberal Party’s strategists are applying this tactic of deception in preparation for 2016. If so, they are certainly succeeding in confusing the public. The trouble is, they appear to be confusing their own allies as well.

Take the suggestion to amend the Constitution to allow a second term for Noynoy Aquino. Why did Mar Roxas, acknowledged by the LP as its presidential standard bearer, suddenly pull out this proverbial rabbit from his hat? Is it an admission that Roxas has no chance of winning in 2016? Or is this an intricate gambit?

Subsequent events indicate the latter. In an interview with TV5, Aquino played the classic prick-teasing game. Yes, he thought a constitutional amendment was necessary. But about a term extension, he would have to wait for the opinion of his “bosses,” meaning the Filipino public.

Obvious translation: If the “bosses” tell him that he should serve a second term, he will. Obvious tactic: Mount a massive propaganda campaign to simulate an overwhelming public demand for him to run again.

The problem is, like Aquino’s failed call for people to wear yellow ribbons to demonstrate support for him, the “overwhelming public demand” hasn’t gained any traction.

Is Aquino really waiting to hear from his “bosses” on the suggested second term? Well, he has certainly gotten an earful. A big fat no. Virtually all quarters have made it clear that an extended term is out of the question.

Like a dog with its tail between its legs, Malacañang’s mouthpieces have had to hurriedly “clarify” that it never crossed Aquino’s mind to serve another term.

And Senate attack dog Antonio Trillanes — never famous for prudence — admitted unblushingly that the talk of a term extension was just a “trial balloon.”

Trillanes, a former military man, would have been sent to the stockade if he had let out news about a planned military attack as a “trial balloon.” But then, Trillanes is now a trapo and has developed the politico’s foot-in-mouth disease.

Yet, Aquino has not clearly, unequivocally, emphatically disavowed entertaining the idea of a second term. Not surprisingly, this has caused members of Congress to salivate. After all, if Aquino wants a term extension, he would have to agree to extending the tenure of senators and congressmen, as well. Ano, palalamang?

It was President Cory who insisted on limiting the term of the President to only six years with no reelection, making sure to include that in the 1987 Constitution. Is Aquino defying his mother’s wishes? Is he backtracking on his emotional declaration in his last State of the Nation Address that he was determined to honor the legacy of his parents? Or, as in a chess game, is there a brilliant move afoot?

At any rate, what’s the end game? Surely, at the outset, the LP and Aquino were aware that his approval rating had taken a dive and no propaganda and media manipulation could portray a believable “insistent public demand” for a second term.

What’s more, this gambit has wreaked confusion even among LP allies. Speaker Sonny Belmonte, a loyal party member who has pushed economic amendments to the Constitution, has publicly rejected the idea of including a second presidential term.

Whatever the objectives of Aquino and the LP strategists, the gambit appears to have backfired. It hasn’t helped improve Aquino’s public opinion ratings — probably eroding it, in fact. It has also tended to confirm that Roxas’ presidential dreams are dashed. And it has succeeded in portraying the Liberal Party — along with its principals, Frank Drilon, Butch Abad, Mar Roxas — as being completely out of touch with the public pulse.

Now comes the “no election” gambit. In a recent pronouncement, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda injected the titillating “if” on the subject of holding the elections in 2016. Deputy spokesperson Abigail Valte subsequently pointed out that Lacierda had simply made a “slip of the tongue” and never intended to suggest that holding the 2016 polls was “iffy.”

Valte even blamed Lacierda’s inadequacy in speaking Tagalog for the slip. He speaks better English, she explained, prompting a social media pundit to declare in anguish, “Good grief, a presidential spokesman who can’t speak the national language!!!”

Having suffered so many of Lacierda’s foot-in-mouth gaffes, someone else quipped that Lacierda had made a “slip of the tanga.” But then, one can never tell what the strategists in Malacañang and the Liberal Party have in mind. Perhaps it was Lacierda’s way of floating a trial balloon. Or, maybe, it’s another confuse-the-enemy tactic in the LP’s playbook.

What these strategists may be overlooking is that neither the term extension nor the no-election tactic can be pulled off painlessly.

It will require mustering the wily brains of a Ferdinand Marcos and a Juan Ponce Enrile, simulating a violent crisis (like the fake ambush on Enrile’s vehicle), exploding a bomb at a political rally (like the August 21, 1971, bombing at Plaza Miranda) and creating such an atmosphere of anarchy that the only option is to declare martial law and, subsequently, to grant Aquino a second term without any election.

But going by their recent missteps, Roxas, Abad or Drilon doesn’t appear to have the brilliant brains of a Marcos. Abad may have had the financial creativity to conceive the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), but does he have Ponce Enrile’s gall to simulate an ambush?

And what about Drilon? As an avid listener to unguarded conversations in Manila’s coffee shops, I have gathered this much: In a crunch, Drilon will have no hesitancy abandoning Aquino and his allies and transferring his loyalty to whoever appears to be a sure winner in the next presidential elections.

Pundits describe Drilon as the quintessential survivor, having served under or survived the administrations of Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and now Noynoy Aquino, and having flitted from Lakas-Laban to Erap’s Laban ng Makabayang Masang Pilipino to Arroyo’s campaign in the Garcified presidential elections.

As for Mar Roxas, maybe he is planning to play a bargaining chip by which the Filipino people will be given a choice, as in: Okay, you are against the idea of no elections and you don’t want a second term for PNoy, yet you want to continue his reforms, right? Therefore, your only logical option is to elect me President, get it?

Yeah, get it? But what makes Roxas think Aquino would be reelected if he ran again? And if Roxas were to run instead, what makes him think he will win?

Guess who’s confused.

christian monsod calls out the president on a 2nd term and charter change

Former Commission on Elections chairman Christian Monsod, who had helped draft the 1987 Constitution, said Aquino should not think he is the only one who can institute reforms.

“We need systemic change. That’s more than the capability of one person, even if he’s a Superman. And he’s (Aquino) not a Superman,” Monsod told the ANC news channel.

Monsod said he was disappointed that Aquino was not like his mother who rejected suggestions to run for a second term although no law prevented her from doing so.

“The President didn’t sound like Cory. He sounded like Marcos in 1972 on questions of political issues beyond the scope of the Supreme Court… Then he sounded like [former President Fidel] Ramos in 1997 that he is the only one that can continue the reforms,” Monsod said.

Monsod said Aquino should trust the people to choose a leader who can continue reforms that they want.

Monsod said Aquino, in his last two years as President, should instead focus on implementing social reforms to sustain inclusive growth.

While six years may be too short for a good President, Monsod said six years is too long for a bad one and extending the constitutional limit will only worsen the country’s problems.

He added that lifting term limits could actually make the pork barrel problem worse.

“If the President is allowed reelection, it’s an incentive for him, a very strong temptation to use his discretionary funds to assure his reelection. At the same time, he wants to clip the judicial review powers of the Supreme Court, what will happen? He will have his way in misusing people’s money,” Monsod said.

Monsod said the Supreme Court’s decision against the DAP should not be used as an excuse to clip its powers.

Disagrement among the three branches of government are natural and part of the system of checks and balances, he added.

Cha-cha? 2nd Term? Cory Aquino has a message for Noynoy
Political upheavals, anti-democratic elites and the pseudo-revolutionary President

Casino democracy

By Edilberto C. de Jesus

The title I owe to Benedict Anderson, the eminent scholar of Southeast Asian history and politics. Studying the electoral landscape, Anderson described the Philippine system as “politics in a well-run casino.”

His starting point was the robust response to the first post-Marcos provincial and local elections in 1988. Of the 27.6 million eligible voters, 81 percent cast their ballots. Nearly 149,000 candidates competed for 16,500 elective positions, or an average of about nine candidates for each office on offer.

Read on…

Why have all the digital signatures from the Election Returns been stripped?

By Joel Disini 21 May 2013 Facebook Notes

Something is not right with the way the Comelec is conducting the elections. If you go over to http://2013electionresults.comelec.gov.ph and check the ERs (Election Returns) from each precinct you will find that the digital signatures on each ER have been stripped. Digital signatures are absolutely necessary to ensure that the ERs are authentic and have not been tampered with.

Each PCOS machine (Precinct Count Optical Scan – which is the device used to scan the ballots, tabulate them, and transmit the results via GSM modem and/or onto a CF card ) is supposed to be equipped with a private key and a public key. The private key is embedded within the PCOS and is used to sign (and optionally encrypt) the election results generated by the PCOS. The public key should be published (preferably on a publicly accessible website, such as comelec.gov.ph), so that the public can verify the authenticity of any ERs generated by the PCOS machines. (Otherwise, how will Comelec know if the ERs they receive from the precincts have not been sent by a rogue PCOS? How else will the Municipal Centers who receive the CF cards containing ERs then determine that said ERs are authentic and that the CF cards have not been switched?)

For as long as the private key(s) are stored securely inside the PCOS and assuming (1) there is no way to hack into the PCOS to reveal the private key, and assuming that (2) no copies of the private keys have been kept by Comelec or Smartmatic or some other party, then it will be practically impossible for anyone to fabricate fake ERs and thus steal the election. Let me repeat that, as it bears repeating. For as long as the PCOS machines have been programmed properly and for as long as proper security measures were taken during the key generation/registration/embedding/signing process, then it will be impossible for anyone to steal the election.

Allow me to explain.

A 2048 key is mind-numbingly difficult to crack. It is estimated that a desktop computer will take 6400 trillion years to figure out the private key of a given public key. You can check out the math here http://www.digicert.com/TimeTravel/math.htm. Private and Public keys, on the other hand, while impossible to crack, can be generated quite easily by a desktop computer using free open-source software, such as OpenSSL.

The process of generating the keys and storing the private keys in the PCOS machines should be witnessed not just by Smartmatic and Comelec, but interested third parties such as the BEI (Board of Election Inspectors) and representatives of each political party. The people witnessing the process should ensure that all traces of the private key, once embedded in the PCOS, is erased. If a USB drive was used to copy the private key into the PCOS, then that too must be wiped clean. Ideally, some testing of the PCOS is done (by a qualified third party) to ensure that the PCOS is secure and cannot be tampered with. To be safe, the source code should also be reviewed, to make sure there is no back door inside that allows an insider to enter a predefined set of keystrokes (or scan a predefined document) that will trigger the back door (where the private key can be divulged, replaced, or the election results themselves can be edited).

Once the voting is over, the PCOS machines should generate the ERs, sign them (using their unique private keys), and then transmit them to the Comelec server, to the Transparency Server (monitored by the PPCRV, Rappler, etc), and to the Municipal Centers. When the servers receive the ERs from a PCOS, they should check their authenticity (by looking up the corresponding PCOS public keys and verifying that they match the digital signatures). If everything checks out, the comelec server should then publish the digitally signed election results on the comelec website.

 

In this manner, even if there are transmission delays, and horse-trading over the election results, it will not be possible to tamper with the results. Someone can of course generate new public key & private key pairs, and then generate fake ERs using the fake private keys. They would have to somehow tamper with the database of public keys used by the Comelec server, as well as the Database used by Transparency Server to pull off this stunt. Lastly, they would have to hack into the comelec website and replace the list of public keys with their own set of fake public keys. One way to avoid this (other than relying on the public to spot the hacker’s attempts) is to have the BEI and all the Political Parties sign the list of public keys. This way, it would be impossible for the list of public keys to be replaced without being detected. The only way to “beat” the system would then be to physically destroy the PCOS machines, or the comelec & Transparency Server.

So what can be done to prevent cheating in this current election?

1) Comelec must IMMEDIATELY publish the list of precincts and their corresponding PCOS public keys. There is no reason for the Comelec not to do this, other than to buy time to generate new public key/private key pairs for precincts that have yet to report their results.

2) They must publish the digital signatures that come with each ER. Again, there is no reason for the Comelec not to do this, unless some of the published ERs have already been tampered with.

3) The PCOS machines and their CF cards must be secured. If someone has already generated a new set of private keys, then we can detect the fraud by reviewing the source code for the PCOS machines, especially the part where the PCOS writes to the CF card & signs the results, determine where the private Key is stored within the PCOS, then write new code to access this location. Doing this will not be trivial, and it may take a lot of trial and error, but there are 78T PCOS machines, so we have enough machines to experiment on. The embedded private key can now be compared with the published public key and see if they match. If they do not match, then there is cause to believe that some fraud has taken place.

Any attempts to reset the PCOS machines and erase their CF cards should be deemed highly questionable.

4) Of course if unique private keys were never embedded into the PCOS machines, then Smartmatic needs to hauled into court, as there is absolutely no reason why they should stick us with machines using ancient technology. Their existing SAES voting machines already use 2048 public keys. And the cost to implement PKI (public key infrastructure) is minimal – as there is a lot of open source code available to generate keys, sign and encrypt documents, etc.

In fact, if Comelec deliberately asked Smartmatic to deliver PCOS machines without any PKI, Smartmatic should have immediately known that something foul was afoot. This would be the equivalent of asking a Private Security company to watch over a bank, and requiring them to use mobile Phones and walkie-talkies with known transmission problems, or to use CCTV cameras that fail to record, or to use bows and arrows instead of guns!

We shouldn’t wait any longer for someone to file an electoral complaint, or for someone to gather evidence of cheating before springing into action. We already have all the evidence we need – as all the digital security measures to prevent cheating have been turned off!

Joel Disini
CEO, DotPH