(Following is the transcript of the segment "Analysis by Winnie Monsod," which aired on News on Q on June 29, 2009. Prof. Winnie Monsod is the resident analyst of News on Q, which airs weeknights at 9:30 p.m. on Q Channel 11.)

Now that the winning bidder in the election automation project has been announced, there is a tendency for the public to sit back, and maybe heave a sigh of relief that the Philippines has entered the modern era as far as elections are concerned.

Come election day, all we have to do is vote, and the dagdag-bawas will be a thing of the past.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead of sitting back, the public has to be ever more vigilant, to make sure that we don't find ourselves facing total chaos on election day and - the worst scenario of all - a failure of elections.

What are the reasons for this call for vigilance? Only consider: if you Google the winning bidder, Smartmatic, you will find that whereas it is presented to us as a Netherlands-based company, in other words you get the impression it's doing business in the Netherlands and operates from there, the truth is that it merely was incorporated there, and most of its principals are Venezuelans.



How the company got its start, how it won its first project in Venezuela is very murky, involving shares of stock that were bought by the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez. Suspicions have been voiced that the elections in Venezuela, which were automated by Smartmatic were tainted with fraud.

The point here let's face it is that the company, which was investigated by the U.S. Congress, whose activities in the U.S. have been dogged by protests and investigations, and whose Philippine project is the biggest that it has been undertaken, is not exactly a
company where we can put our complete trust in.

It has to be watched and monitored carefully.

Then there is the question of the Comelec's management capability to implement nationwide in one step a radical change in the way elections are conducted.

None of the Comelec commissioners has any management experience, not one has any expertise in information technology.

Add to this a very tight schedule they imposed on themselves that has to be adhered to for everything is to be in place by election day, and you have a recipe for disaster.

As of mid-June, the Comelec is already one month behind schedule - it should have signed the contract for the project on May 27.

Which means that the delivery of the machines - and we are talking of 82,200 machines here, whose delivery most likely will be delayed - which will mean that their testing and inspection will be delayed, which will mean that their configuration - which involves inputting the names of 340 candidates will be delayed.

And this does not even consider the very tight original schedule, which for example implies that 2,740 machines a day have to be tested and inspected. Does that arouse confidence in your breasts, knowing that under the best of conditions, these machines almost caught fire?

And third, is that it should not be assumed that just because there is automation, there could be no cheating. Given new technologies, it is possible that cheating can occur on an even more massive scale unless steps are taken to prevent that.

Which is why it is imperative that we the public ask the Comelec even now, to prepare a Plan B, a back-up plan which may involve either scaling down or even aborting the program if by a certain date – say November or early December, it has been unable to achieve or revert back to its original time schedule.

And, which is why we - the public - must be doubly vigilant.

The bottom line here is that under no circumstance should a peaceful transfer of power in 2010 be prevented or postponed.