DATE: November 2, 2002

PUBLICATION: Manila Bulletin

TITLE: ‘Botong Pinoy’ backed

AUTHOR: Ben R. Rosario

A group of administration lawmakers has urged the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to seriously consider the offer of a team of Filipino computer wizards to plug the loopholes for election fraud through the latest facial and fingerprint biometric technology.

Reps. Robert Ace Barbers (Lakas, Surgao del Norte), Prospero Nograles (Lakas, Davao City) and Frenedil Castro (Liberal Party, Capiz) issued the appeal as they stressed a necessity to implement a “fool-proof electronic registration, voting, and counting system” for the 2004 presidential polls.

“the need for a modern yet secure election procedure has become even more vital as a result of the impending approval of the Absentee Voting Bill,” Barbers said.

A group of Filipino compute geniuses developed the Botong Pinoy registration, voting, and counting procedure that would no longer require identification (ID) cards.

Instead of IDs, identification of voters will only be made through a computerized facial and fingerprint biometric system.

The lawmakers noted that the proposal offered by the Filipino group appears to be “better and cheaper than controversy-prone offer of Photokina Marketing Corp.”

“we were told that its is cheaper than the multi-million Photokina offer that became the source of serious bickerings among Comelec officials,” Nograles said.

Nograles said the Botong Pinoy procedure was developed to adapt to the Philippine voting system, thus, it aims to provide a solution to all poll problems, particularly fraud and counting irregularities.

“The Botong Pinoy proposal should be studied closely because it might just be the answer to the election miseries this country has been made o suffer in the past,” Barbers said.

Castro said that with the Absentee Voting Law expected to be implemented by 2004, Comelec should now “widen its horizon” to consider other voting technologies available in the market instead of narrowing down its choice to only one company.