My Processor's Point of View

Ang Dipolognon
Issue No 1, December 2009



“Philippines: Automated Election in 2010”

My questions are: Is the Country ready? Are the citizens ready? Are we ready?

These are just few of the many questions I have in my mind when this move of our government started. Personally, I am in favor of this undertaking. I am in favor not just because I am an IT professional; I am in favor because I want change. Change in the system, change in the culture; change in the way Filipinos chose their leaders, and change for my country. I voted ones, I have witnessed how unsystematic our electoral process, I have witnessed how hard for my fellow Filipinos to cast their votes. It took a lot of days to count the votes; it took a lot of weeks to declare who wins.

I can say, we filipinos never learn. We are all hounded by these nightmares for decades or even centuries and yet we never learn. A lot of us still question the credibility, assurance, reliability and integrity of this plan. My question to those who are uncertain: When are we going to do this?

The thing is we will never know the answers of our questions until we do it. There are no perfect things in this world. Yes there are possibilities of failure, but do we really need to live with this notion? It’s just a matter of believing that WE Filipinos can do it. Personally, the percentage of success in automation is small; this applies to any automation I have encountered as an IT professional. We can never know the solution until we encounter the problem. But if we really want change, we only have to believe that we can do it.

If they (other countries) can do it, why can’t we? The hardest part is only at the beginning. We might encounter problems next year, but I’m sure we can solve everything the next more years. I still have little confidence in our government. I believe that we Filipinos can do this. Let’s just believe and commit to the CHANGE we long dreamed of having. Let’s do this.