TAMA NA PO!: Many people feel their blood pressure soaring and some start vomiting when politicians talk of their working out “covenants” and “win-win” solutions to problems that they themselves had created.

Tama na yang “win-win” at “covenant-covenant” ninyo, hoy!

“Win-win” merely means that the politicians will all come out winners and the people losers. Similarly, the vaunted “covenant” is the offspring of compromise born after principles are tossed out for expediency.

After days of inaction that saw the impeach-Davide ripple grow to tidal wave proportions, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo now talks grandly of a constitutional covenant, whatever she means by that.

Speaker Jose de Venecia of the House of Representatives, where the impeachment imbroglio was started by the brat pack of businessman Eduardo Cojuangco, brags that there would be a solution, a “constitutional reconciliation,” in 72 hours (from Tuesday).

Is anybody out there keeping track of the many crimes being committed in the name of the Constitution?

While lawyers debated before the Supreme Court yesterday the legal twists and turns of impeachment, and their politician-clients drank to compromise, citizens got hurt in the dispersal of marchers near the SC premises.

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24-HOUR COUNT: The lawyer of the Mega Pacific consortium chosen to supply the computers for the 2004 national elections relayed to us yesterday information that their automated counting machines are so efficient that they would give the election results within 24 hours.

While we are hesitant to believe that piece of good news, we hope it is true.

This claimed efficiency of the Mega Pacific counting machines provides the best argument for the Comelec not to throw away P300 million for conducting a Quick Count in addition to the official count using the same equipment.

The poll results will be known in 24 hours anyway, so why do Comelec officials insist on splurging on their own Quick Count?

If a speed count is needed by special clients, there is the old reliable Namfrel Quick Count, managed by IT volunteer experts, that could be had for free.

The Comelec plan to conduct its own parallel Quick Count is unnecessary, confusing, redundant, illegal, expensive — and suspicious.

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COMPUTERS DEFENDED: Alfredo V. Lazaro, lawyer of Mega Pacific, said that the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) has certified a 100-percent accuracy rate on 455 of the 456 counting machines that had been tested as of last Oct. 24, 2003.

Director Rolando Viloria, head of the DoST’s Metals Industries Research Development Center (MIRDC) who was quoted by Lazaro, pointed out however that the 100-percent rating can be assured only if the ballot is accomplished properly by the voter and if the operator feeds correctly each ballot into the counting machine.

The counting machine rejects any ballot fed incorrectly (such as if it is inverted). The operator is allowed only three tries to feed again any rejected ballot. The machine might also reject a ballot that is not properly marked or prepared by the voter.

This means that the approximately 40 million voters all over the archipelago and the thousands of personnel who will operate the sensitive counting machines will have to be trained in the new technology.

(We hope this will not result in another juicy mega-contract for a crash nationwide education program for voters and technicians.)

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NOT STAND-ALONE: But Lazaro did not say anything about the communication port that was among the features seen on the computers when first submitted for inspection.

The law authorizing the computerization of the election process required that the counting machines be “stand-alone.” The computers cannot be rigidly “stand-alone” if they have a communication port waiting to be used.

A cable can easily by plugged into the communication port of the machine to link it to an outside party. Through this cable, data and/or instructions can be easily sent and received to/from the machine.

Why this suspicious feature, which was not among the specifications spelled out in the law? They thought nobody would notice this seemingly inconspicuous, harmless feature?

Another problem is how to ensure that the machines will work during a power brownout and even without the cool, clean atmosphere demanded by the hardware.

(Will this require another juicy mega-contract for electric generators and the construction of dust-free, static-free and air-conditioned rooms for the computers to be set up in selected sites around the country?)

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FAIR TRADE: With globalization swallowing weaker economies, concerned business and industry associations and entrepreneurs, trade unions, peasant and farm organizations as well as non-government organizations have banded together for their common survival under the umbrella of a Fair Trade Alliance.

They warned of the drying up of local industries, agriculture and jobs, resulting from unjust trade, monetary and economic policies imposed on the country by global financial and trade bodies such as the World Trade Organization.

This reality has been aggravated by the other countries’ monopolistic control on technology, the dumping of excess and subsidized products and the limitations in the entry of Philippine products into their markets.

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TARIFF PROBLEMS: The alliance pointed out that the problem has been aggravated by the country’s accelerated tariff reduction program. Even the government now finds itself on the losing end as its revenue targets are not met.

On the average, tariff duty collections have decreased reportedly from 5.3 percent of the gross national product in 1993 to a mere 2.7 percent in 2000. Customs’ tariff collections dropped from P255 billion in 1996 when the average MFN (most favored nations) tariff was at 15.55 percent to P109.6 billion in 2001 when the average MFN tariff was cut to 7.71 percent.

What is ironic is that the Philippines is not supposed to accelerate the reduction of tariff because it has no such commitment with the WTO.

A hint of what is yet to come is that by virtue of Executive Order 334 issued by the previous administration, tariff rates for products coming from MFN will be slashed further to 0-5 percent starting January 1 next year.

While there is need to scrap the country’s Tariff Reform Program (TRP), it is a good sign that affected businesses are taking it positively by doing their share in working out ways to weather the crisis.

Traders and businessmen point out, however, that the government should not forget its primary role of protecting threatened sectors.