At a press conference Wednesday, Thailand Ambassador to the Philippines Kulkumut Singhara Na Ayudhaya said the two officials’ statements “were not based on facts and may have some implication of hidden agendas.”

He said he was set to file a diplomatic protest with the Department of Foreign Affairs this Wednesday.

Pressed to reveal what these agenda might be, the ambassador said he didn’t know for sure if there was an agenda, only that it appeared that there was.

The ambassador said that while the Philippine society allowed for open criticisms, it must respect facts and rule of law.

Its officials should not “compare the two societies [as if] competing to do something that is not necessary at all. If there is a good advice, Thailand will appreciate it,” he said.

The ambassador said calling Thais politically immature was not fair. “Thais have admired Filipinos for a long, long time. The Philippines has been a place of knowledge for us for a long, long time,” he said.

The ambassador said he was also concerned about the two officials’ statements that Filipinos “have reached a high degree of political maturity whereby our people respect due process and the rule of law,” and that “the political turmoil in Thailand could not possibly happen here.”

“In fact, the protest is only [an] indication that [the] Thai people are free to exercise their political right based on democracy. In the midst of the protests, the Royal Thai Government has committed itself to upholding the democratic system and will resolve the current situation in accordance with the democratic means,” he said.

Asked if he wanted the two to apologize, the ambassador said he could not require that of them. “It is voluntary,” he said.

The ambassador also noted that these statements violated the ASEAN Charter which specified that member-countries could not interfere in each other’s internal affairs.

“I would also like to reiterate the importance of the basic principle of ASEAN which appears in the ASEAN Charter that the member countries will not interfere in each other’s internal affairs,” he said.

Thailand protests RP criticism vs crisis – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

“I don’t have to apologize for anything and thank you very much for doing his research. And the Thai ambassador should do his research for what I actually said,” Gordon told a press conference Wednesday, directing his statement to Thailand Ambassador to the Philippines Kulkumut Singhara Na Ayudhaya.

He said the ambassador should check his facts first because he might have been misinformed.

“Ang sinabi ko lang [What I just said], we should always remember the national interest dahil itong nangyayari sa Cha-Cha [because what is happening to Cha-cha] ay [is] combustible… pwedeng magkaroon ng liyab yan at baka gayahin natin yang mga nangyayari dyan [this can cause a spark and we might imitate what is happening there]. Tayo pa ang manggagaya sa Thailand na nakakagulo ang ating bayan [It’s as if we have to ape Thailand when our country is in chaos],” he said.

“At yung tingnan niyo kako nangyayari dun, nasisira yung kanilang tourism at nasisira rin yung kanilang exports at nasasaktan ang mga tao, yun ang sinabi ko [And what I said was look at what’s happening to Thailand, its tourism is disrupted, their exports are affected, and people get hurt. That is what I said],” he pointed out.

Gordon said it was farthest from his mind to say anything against a country.

“But even If I did, assuming for the sake of argument that I did, this is a free country and everybody, every citizen is entitled to his opinion,” he said.

The senator said he did not even think that the Thais were politically immature.

In fact, he said, the Thai has always been an “expert “in diplomacy.

“Because they had never been colonized by anybody. They have always been neutral. Galing nila [They’re good],” Gordon further said.

Source: Inquirer.net

“I want security in every step of the election process,” added Gordon who is co-chairman of the joint Congressional Oversight Committee on poll automation.

In an interview with INQUIRER.net, Gordon disclosed some of his concerns amid the current discussions in the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on what technology to use for the 2010 elections.

Comelec is mandated to work with an advisory council composed of various stakeholders in government and private sector.

Gordon said the election automated system should have paper audit trail of ballots to reduce vote buying through “kadena.”

He also said there should be ample protection of software source code so computers for counting cannot be hacked and thus tampering of votes or “dagdag-bawas” can be prevented.

Vendors recently showcased their technology during an exhibition at the Election Technology Conference.

Some of the technologies that were displayed include optical mark recognition (OMR), direct-recording electronic machine (DRE), among others. Both technologies were pilot-tested in the elections in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) last August.

OMR reads data from marked ballots using scanning technology and transfers data through a network.

DRE, on the other hand, uses touch-screen technology for casting votes. Voters only need to choose from menu of candidates. Once they have picked their choice, the DRE prints a copy of their ballot. Their vote is then stored in DRE system for consolidation and transmission to a central location.

Gordon said, “It is important to find out what technology will work best in the country,” as he referred to the showcased technologies during the exhibit.

Based on his brief inspection of the election technologies offered, he said the solutions should provide ease of deployment in terms of logistics and cost.

Comparing it to the current manual election system, Gordon said automated elections in 2010 will pave the way for “accurate, easy and tamper-proof” elections. “Those cheaters do not have a PhD yet in automated polls, which they have in manual elections,” he added.

He also urged Comelec to consider redundancy before they acquire technology.

Gordon said technologies should be evaluated on whether they can be used even after the elections.

He suggested that computers used after the elections could be left to the schools that have served as voting precincts.

“Though this is a wish-list, we get more bang for the buck [as we] benefit from our investment in [technology for the] elections and [later] in education,” he said.

Gordon said he is drafting a bill for early elections in 2010, which aims to cut costs and to secure voting results earlier in areas of conflict like ARMM.

“When we have automated polls, I do not want people at the polling centers interfering with voters like what happened in previous ARMM elections. I believe Filipinos are smart [enough] to participate in an automated election,” Gordon said.

Meanwhile, Comelec commissioner Rene Sarmiento said in a statement the Philippines can learn lessons from the recent U.S. automated polls, which also had early elections.

He cited the early voting done in some US states accounted for one-third of the total votes cast for president, up from 14 percent in 2000.

Comelec has said that 40 million Filipino voters will participate in the upcoming presidential elections in 2010.

A total of P21 billion of supplemental budget will be needed for the automated machines for 2010, said Ambassador Henrietta de Villa, chairperson of Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), also a member of the advisory council to Comelec.

De Villa said that such “investment” will prevent vote buying and vote selling, which can also pave the way for cleaner elections in the future.

Gordon suggested that the automated poll election system will work better if a national ID system based on biometrics is in place.

However, in an earlier report in INQUIRER.net, Comelec chairman Jose Melo said biometrics screening might not be used in the 2010 elections because it is too expensive.

However, according to the same INQUIRER.net story, Comelec was quoted as saying that it might be able to use biometrics at the start of voters’ registration on December 1.

Nine vendors participated in the simulated testing of automated poll solutions on the third day of the conference on November 19.

Of the nine vendors, two vendors were suppliers in the recent US elections. These were the Election Systems and Software Inc. which consolidated 50 percent of the total votes cast during the US elections and DRS Data Services Ltd.

A Filipino homegrown solution, called “Botong Pinoy,” developed by Mega Group of Companies, was also at the event.

During the conference, about 150 respondents from different sectors of the society participated in focus group discussions (FGDs) on technologies tested during the event.

The respondents eventually noted that while most technologies promise to speed up vote counting, “credibility and transparency” remained as paramount concerns.

Michael Barredo, president of International Blind Sports Confederation and Geraldine Ruiz, executive director III of National Council On Disability Affairs, said they hope election technologies would also allow for disabled persons to participate in the elections without help from relatives.

“In my opinion, it is likely to have a combination of DRE and OMR technologies for the upcoming elections like in ARMM,” said De Villa.

She added that the results from the focus group discussion will provide additional research material for Comelec to identify which election technology is fit to deploy in 2010.

The conference was organized by nonprofit organization International Foundation for Electoral Systems, in partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Comelec Advisory Council and Comelec.

Gordon: Credible tech in 2010 elections – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos