Techronnati Update

Embarking on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in the Philippine May 2010 Elections

Posted: 07 May 2010 08:18 PM PDT

May-ten-twenty-ten (translation: May 10 ,2010) marks the official and national automated elections in the Philippines. Thanks to the stalwart and resilient effort of the current administration and to the COMELEC for pushing this Information and Communications Technology (ICT) campaign despite the long bidding processes which eventually won by poll automation contract to Smartmatic and Total Information Management and the political protests of delay and interruptions coming from various social and political groups. I firmly believe that in a rapidly changing world like ours, this particular move is crucial, relevant and seasonal. By increasing ICT awareness to every Filipino this voting season, we are becoming one step wiser and open-minded for more and greater things to come in the future. This even brings positive reinforcements as a recent study conducted by IDC predicts that the ICT landscape in the Philippines this year will be driven by recovery of its ICT spending – an estimated US$3.14 and $3.81 billion in total IT and telecommunication market spending respectively by end of 2010. This is totally good news. See how strong the Philippine Pesos this time of election period. Though much have been said about how effective this automated elections in terms of Financial Savings, and in addressing electoral issues like frauds, efficiency of electoral tasks and electoral results, still i worry about the digital divide especially the rural folks living in the far away provinces where most of the people regarded themselves as poor and belongs to class C, D or E in our society. You see, in history, we’ve seen how former President Estrada won the 2004 Presidential Elections where there’s a landslide win with majority of the votes come to these classes. I am optimistic and hopeful that the amount of time given to these hierarchical groups for manpower training was enough and that information campaign and dissemination regarding the automated elections reaches every unit of our society to reflect our truly democratic system and that every Filipino could have a taste of modernized election.

Time flies so fast. And in just 2 days, we will again witness the series turn of events. This includes how we judge these presidentiables and their political platforms for the Philippines. Not to mention, we standby as we witness how effective are their political campaigns from the use of multi-million political advertisements on television and radio, through the social networking internet sites like facebook, linkedin, greenbodytalk, multiply, facepic, tagged, blogs and from other means of electronic channels via mobile/cellphones, public posters, online/offline surverys (from sws surveys, pulse asia surveys, online surveys) as well as winning speeches from presidential debates on forums.

And with a lot of Filipinos doing their share to participate this election 2010, it’s exciting to see what’s in store for my beloved country. You see this even gives me better hope as there are lots of deserving candidates to choose from unlike during the 2004 Presidential elections where we are presented mostly with a limited no. of candidates, even having second thoughts on who to actually vote which is only disheartening. In essence, this perfect time gives every Filipino voters a chance to equally think, reassess and learn much more the deserving candidate. With these, I hope and pray that we see a new and clean elections come this May-ten-twenty-ten .

To give us a glimpse and preview of who will win this May 2010 Election – Monday,let us create an independent Presidential poll. Who do you think is the best President for our country? And why do you think s/he’s the deserving one ?

We appreciate your comments as we like to know your insights and your presidential bets. This would be for the future of our country so think and vote wisely.

For those who are still unaware of what is going to happen on Monday May 10 elections, i am posting this Election Campaign Tutorial… Tagalog version…. vote wisely.