TOMORROW, many Filipinos who are not happy with their lives or the status quo in general might vote for a demagogue without being aware of it. What or who is a demagogue? You will readily recognize him as identified below by Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

“A demagogue according to Webster’s Universal College Dictionary is a person, especially an orator or political leader, who gains power by arousing people’s emotions and prejudices.

“The word demagogue, meaning a leader of the common people, first arose in ancient Greece, originally with no negative connotation, but eventually came to mean a troublesome kind of leader. Even though democracy gave power to the common people, elections still tended to favor the aristocratic class, which favored deliberation and decorum.

“Demagogues were a new kind of leader who emerged from the lower classes. Demagogues relentlessly advocated action, usually violent—immediately and without deliberation. Demagogues appealed directly to the emotions of the poor and uninformed, pursuing power, telling lies to stir up hysteria, exploiting crises to intensify popular support for their calls to immediate action and increased authority, and accusing moderate opponents of weakness or disloyalty to the nation.

“While all politicians in a democracy must make occasional small sacrifices of truth, subtlety, or long-term concerns to maintain popular support, demagogues do these things relentlessly and without self-restraint.

“Demagogues have been found in democracies from Athens to the present day. Through their popular appeal, demagogues exploit the freedom secured under democracy to gain a level of power for themselves that overrides the rule of law, thereby undermining democracy.

“The Greek historian Polybius thought that democracies are inevitably undone by demagogues. He said that every democracy eventually decays into ‘a government of violence and the strong hand,’ leading to ‘tumultuous assemblies, massacres, banishments.’”

Are the Filipino masses being manipulated to unwittingly vote for a demagogue?

■ My vote goes to Roxas for president

READERS have been asking me my choice for president. After weighing the character, career preparation, and competence of the presidential candidates, I have chosen Mar Roxas, who has Leni Robredo running with him for vice president.

I have found Roxas – and Miriam Santiago – most academically, professionally and morally fit for the presidency. But the medical issues troubling the senadora (sorry, ma’am) may not allow her to cope with the grueling six-year job.

An election is not a race where bettors divine which of the horses is most likely to win — and then bet on it. Tomorrow, we are not called upon to gamble, or to jump onto a bandwagon, but to simply exercise our right of suffrage by declaring our choice for the president of this country, win or lose.

It is remarkable that in the dirty world of Philippine politics, Roxas has managed to keep his name clean during his 22 years in government. Performance-wise, he could have scored some dramatic moments of his own, but he was not in full and free control — having to function in the shadow of a President tightly holding the reins.

But the opportunities missed by the nation that he had witnessed from the ringside will serve Roxas well as president, because he now has the benefit of hindsight. He is better prepared to avoid the same mistakes and improve on the shortcomings of previous administrations. All this to be done within the law.

■ Cheating would be human, not VCM, failure

THE INTEGRITY of tomorrow’s elections is in our human hands, not so much in the unfeeling innards of the 97,517 vote counting machines (VCM) deployed in 92,509 clustered precincts in 42,036 barangays in 81 provinces and 144 cities.

After spending time studying the hardware with senior technicians and going through voting-counting trial runs, we are reasonably convinced that the machines – if run by the proper programs — will count the votes correctly.

Security mechanisms include highest possible degree of encryption, security layering, tight transmission protocols, digital signatures and device identity assurance. The system is even redundant, meaning each bit of information is stored in different places and using different formats (digital and analog) to facilitate extensive auditing.

If there is cheating, a given in Philippine elections, it is likely to occur outside the VCM, possibly in the pre-voting stage outside the precincts and/or in the transmission of the results.

We have not outgrown the old practices of vote buying, herding of camp followers, intimidation, and such malpractices. With the help of the authorities and citizens’ watchdog groups, the competing political parties might cancel out, or worsen, one another’s cheating.

By monitoring, documenting and reporting any suspicious activity, the citizen can help minimize the possibility of the polls being compromised. Voters are urged to turn out early within the 6 a.m.-to-5 p.m. window. This helps prevent a buildup later in the day when volume and fatigue may slow down the process.

In filling out the ballot, the oval beside the number of the chosen candidate must be shaded at least 25 percent for the vote to be counted. The ballots are precinct-specific, meaning they cannot be used for other precincts. There is no generic ballot that can be sneaked in for extra voting.

Once voting is over, the VCM adds the votes, prints 30 copies of the results for all accredited stakeholders. It then transmits the data to the Transparency and the Central servers, and also to the city/municipal and the provincial boards of canvassers. The PBOC sends the results for national positions to the national board of canvassers (the Congress).

Intercepting and changing the votes is practically impossible. All data are encrypted and digitally signed. If there is any electronic interception attempted, the digital signatures embedded would be instantly broken. If the canvassing servers detect broken digital signatures, the tainted election results are rejected and set aside for investigation.

Transmission of results uses encrypted data and travels through secure channels. The VCMs remain off-line until they are used (for around two short minutes) to transmit results, making interception extremely difficult.