Telling it like it is

Inside Comelec has recently uploaded a copy of the Rebublic Act 9369.

An introduction of the law states:

AN ACT AMENDING REPUBLIC ACT NO. 8436, ENTITLED “AN ACT AUTHORIZING THE COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS TO USE AN AUTOMATED ELECTION SYSTEM IN THE MAY 11, 1998 NATIONAL OR LOCAL ELECTION AND IN SUBSEQUENT NATIONAL AND LOCAL ELECTORAL EXERCISES , TO ENCOURAGE TRANSPARENCY, CREDIBILITY, FAIRNESS AND ACCURACY OF ELECTIONS, AMENDING FOR THE PURPOSE BATAS PAMBANSA BLG. 881, AS AMENDED, REPUBLIC ACT NO. 7166 AND OTHER RELATED ELECTION LAWS, PROVIDING FUNDS THEREFORE AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES”

The Commission on Elections said it was going to convene the technical advisory group to discuss how to implement the law on Monday.

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Despite recommendations from experts and the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) not to push through with the automation of election on May 2007, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo went ahead and signed a law amending Republic Act 8436.

This will initiate the pilot test of an automated election system in at least 12 areas in the country, the INQUIRER.net report said.

This came as a surprise considering the Commission on Elections had already stated it didn’t have enough time and resources to run an automated elections in select areas. Another interesting development to follow.

Excerpt of the INQUIRER.net report:

MANILA, Philippines — President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has signed a law that would automate the election process beginning with the May 2007 polls.

Republic Act 9369, signed January 23, seeks to amend the current automation law, Republic Act 8436, by authorizing the use of an automated election system (AES) in the voting, counting, consolidation, canvassing, and transmission of results and other electoral processes.

Lawmakers believe the enactment of the bill into law will show the administration’s commitment to credible elections in May.

Presidential Political Adviser Gabriel Claudio said the enactment of the poll automation law is a fulfillment of Arroyo’s 10-point agenda “It is in pursuit of the political and electoral reforms that she signed the AES bill, which she had certified as urgent,” Claudio said in a text message.

The report also pointed out that this development will jeopardize Comelec’s Internet voting project, which will be initiated in Singapore.

The Commission on Elections took up the issue of short messaging service (SMS) campaigning this week, hoping to tackle the question on whether political parties can use this technology to convince people to vote for their candidates in the coming May elections. This issue emerged after the National Telecommunications Commission sought the legal opinion of the election body this week.

Excerpt of the INQUIRER.net story:

MANILA, Philippines — It will be “very difficult” to regulate the use of the short messaging service or text messages to send paid political advertisements to cell phone users, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) acknowledged Wednesday.

“Regulation of SMS campaigning looks to be very difficult,” Comelec spokesman James Jimenez told INQUIRER.net in a brief interview when he stepped out of a closed door meeting between the commission en banc and regional election officers.

The guidelines for SMS campaigning is one of the items the Comelec en banc is discussing in a closed-door meeting that is taking place as of this posting.

Before the meeting, Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos said SMS campaigning “seems okay” but “has to be regulated.”

Read more of this story here.

Even the poorest of the poor Filipinos spend an average of $2 a month on mobile phone services, a recent study has shown.

Excerpt of the article that was published in INQUIRER.net:

MANILA, Philippines — Poor Filipinos living off a shoestring budget nonetheless spend about $2 a month on mobile telecommunications, according to a recent study done in five developing countries in Asia.

Hoping to understand the telecommunications use of people from the “bottom of the pyramid” of socioeconomic classification, “Teleuse on a Shoestring 2: A study of telecom use at the bottom of the pyramid in Asia” revealed that telecommunications access was prevalent even among poor Filipinos.

“We found out that in Philippines’ poorest households, there were at least one phone available,” Ayesha Zainudeen, assistant to the executive director and researcher of LIRNEAsia, which presented the study’s results, told reporters.

About 70 percent of the poorest Filipinos have access to a phone, in particular a mobile phone from a friend or a household member, Zainudeen said at the Communication Policy Research (CPR) South conference in Manila.

Read the rest of the story here.

Slate published this story about the explosion of “first-person” witnessing, thanks to camera phones. As the article puts it: this innovation has allowed us to capture the “best of things,” “the worst of things,” and “everything.”

Like any other technology, camera phones can be abused. But its power to capture fleeting moments is undeniable. At the same time, it is also the meanest invention that can break people’s hearts since it can easily invade privacy. Video clips captured by today’s camera phone-totting crowd have varied from the mundane to the extraordinary. Remember, how the video clip of Saddam Hussein’s hanging taken by one of witnesses using his phone camera sparked controversy worldwide? The camera phone and the power it wields reminds me of an adage repeated in Spiderman, The Movie: “With power comes great responsibility.”

Of late, camera phones have become wonderful tools for journalists like me. We don’t have to be a rocket scientist to take videos now. All we need is a steady arm, nice timing, and a good sense of what makes a good, no, a compelling video.

As Slate’s Michael Agger writes:

So, before we move on to the next racist comedian or cocaine-snorting supermodel, let’s put the Saddam video in context. It is a weird echo of the Zapruder film, another piece of amateur footage that caught the death of a leader. The differences are stark, of course. Zapruder captured Kennedy while standing openly in the Dallas sunlight. The official who videoed Saddam did so furtively, pointing his camera to the ground at times. But they both testify to the power of first-person witnessing, and how a digital copy of that witnessing can upend neat narratives and certainties. We’ll see the best of things, we’ll see the worst of things, we’ll see everything.

See this interesting video clip about the French “street kissers.”

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWrsrKcf3AM[/video]

The Department of Education announced it was getting additional money –around P260 million– to fund the purchase of PCs, Internet for public schools, INQUIRER.net reported. Excerpt:

So far, the DEPED has provided computer laboratories to 73 percent or 3,512 public high schools in 2006 while 30 percent of these have Internet connection.

[DepEd Secretary Jesli] Lapus said another 5,280 computers are to be procured this year to achieve a 100-percent computer coverage of public high schools.

Along with the computerization, Lapus said the DEPED will also focus on building up the core staff of science and mathematics supervisors and master teachers, train education managers and hone the skills of non-teaching personnel.

I hope DepEd with the help from the private sector can make this work. I remember efforts to “computerize” schools years back ended in failure because many of the computers provided were not used. Due to lack training and support from parents and teachers–and the local communities, most of these computers were just gathering dust. Public schools will need to find ways to pay for the electricity bills, Internet connection, and maintenance of the computers. They also have train teachers how to take care of the computers. It would be nice to find out how the first few school beneficiaries are doing now.

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Several years ago, I went up in Bontoc, Mt. Province to do a story on the Mountain Province General Comprehensive High School. (I tried searching that article online but couldn’t find it, unfortunately). Anyway, thanks to donations from companies like Microsoft and the government, the school finally got connected to the Internet. Despite the financial woes they faced, they kept going because of the strong support from the teachers, the local community, and local government.

I came across Steve Outing’s column on Editor and Publisher, titled “Some Words of Advice for Small Newspapers.” I’ve been doing a lot of readings on convergent journalism lately. Thanks to the Internet, I found such interesting insights, which I could cite in a school paper due two weeks from now

One of the interesting phenomenon in today’s “new new media,” (as the column by Joey Alarilla describes today’s environment), is the resurgence of community papers, again thanks to the Internet. In a previous article I wrote, one of the editors I interviewed made this observation: For national news, people tend to go for local television. For international news, they watch cable news sources like CNN, BBC, etc. But for community news, they go for community newspapers from a nearby newsstand. But I digress.