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Smartmatic: Expect PCOS to malfunction on E-Day By Marie A. Surbano and Mario J. Mallari 04/13/2010

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Smartmatic: Expect PCOS to malfunction on E-Day


By Marie A. Surbano and Mario J. Mallari
04/13/2010

After assuring the public all throughout that the more than 82,000 precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines will work properly come election day, the confidence of Smartmatic Corp., was nowhere to be found as it yesterday admitted it expects the machines to malfunction on May 10.

At the same time, acting Defense chief Norberto Gonzles told the nation to “expect the worst on election day, as he bared that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) officials had admitted before the National Security Council in a recent meeting, to expect a worse poll scenario, with 30 percent of the country not having automated polls.

Cesar Flores, Smartmatic president for Asia Pacific, yesterday told reporters what which happened in Hong Kong where one of its machines broke down on the second day of the voting for overseas absentee is not surprising and was expected.

But Flores claimed that the failure rate is very minimal and could be less than 1 percent or roughly between 200 to 400 units only out of the 76,200 machines that will be deployed to the 76,000 clustered precincts nationwide.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100413hed2.html

GMA’s rating hits new record low of -55% 04/13/2010

GMA’s rating hits new record low of -55%


04/13/2010

A survey on presidential satisfaction rating found President Arroyo hitting a new record low — the lowest ever obtained by a Philippine president, with the Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey conducted between March 19 and 22, 2010, showing a mere 16 percent satisfied and a high 69 percent dissatisfied with her performance,
giving her a record-low net statisfaction rating of minus 53.

Her net satisfaction rating fell by 15 points from net -38 (23 percent satisfied, 61 percent dissatisfied) in December 2009. The previous record low was net -50 in July 2008.

The survey also found that 60 percent disagree, while 24 percent agree, that Arroyo intends to extend her term by running for congress representative in her district in Pampanga.

Majorities in all areas and classes believe Arroyo does not intend to extend her term by running for Congress representing in the second district of Pampanga, her home province.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100413hed5.html

Flirting with HR violators and the corrupt EDITORIAL 04/13/2010

Flirting with HR violators and the corrupt



EDITORIAL
Click to enlarge
04/13/2010

With Speaker Prospero Nograles, along with 30 congressmen, bolting the administration Lakas-Kampi-CMD (Lakas) and may be joining forces with Nacionalista Party (NP) presidential candidate Sen. Manuel “Manny” Villar, there is little hope for Lakas bet Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro to make it to the presidency.

Villar is obviously the beneficiary of this bolting by Lakas stalwarts, but it is not only Teodoro who will suffer from this surprise move of Nograles and his core group of some 30 congressmen, but also Sen. Noynoy Aquino, the Liberal Party (LP) standard bearer.

The NPs, now strengthened by the Nograles group, have been given yet another weapon with which to criticize Aquino, who was recently endorsed by Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and his camp.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100413com1.html

Big poll problems, no real solutions FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 04/13/2010

Big poll problems, no real solutions



FRONTLINE
Ninez Cacho-Olivares
04/13/2010

Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Smartmatic continue to play down the glitches and malfunction experienced during the overseas voting, even when it is now getting more and more probable that even more glitches and machine malfunctions can be expected to occur in the country nationwide on May 10.

In Hong Kong, it was reported that on the second day of the overseas absentee voting, the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines at the Bayanihan Kennedytown Center failed to immediately accept the ballots, even when the ballots were clean and correctly shaded.

Also reported was that in one precinct where the machine failed, a replacement PCOS was brought in shortly after. But in the same precinct, the two replacement machines didn’t function, and the orginal machine which earlier went on the blink went well.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100413com2.html

Future Pope cautious about defrocking abusive priest — letters focus 04/13/2010

Future Pope cautious about defrocking abusive priest — letters



focus

04/13/2010

LOS ANGELES — As a senior Vatican official in the 1980s, future Pope Benedict XVI was reluctant to defrock a California priest accused of sexually abusing children, correspondence released by lawyers for the victims appeared to show on Friday.

A series of letters released by attorney Jeff Anderson showed repeated misgivings concerning the conduct of priest Stephen Kiesle raised by senior officials from the Oakland diocese during the early 1980s.

In a letter sent by Oakland Bishop John Cummins to the Vatican in June 1981, he petitioned authorities to defrock Kiesle, citing a 1978 court case where he had pleaded no contest to abusing six children aged between 11 and 13.
A further letter sent by Cummins in February 1982 to then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — who at the time was responsible for enforcing Roman Catholic doctrine and went on to become Pope Benedict XVI in 2005 — again urged Kiesle to be defrocked..... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100413com3.html

Missing Nida NO HOLDS BARRED Armida Siguion-Reyna 04/13/2010

Missing Nida



NO HOLDS BARRED
Armida Siguion-Reyna
04/13/2010

Philip Medel is dead, and I grieve. Not for his passing, for I did not know him, but that he took the secrets of the gruesome slaying of the beloved Nida Blanca to his grave.

It’s generally believed that Medel took Nida’s life. He knew too many details, a lawyer-friend pointed out, among them that it was a telephone cord used to strangle the victim and that the cord was hidden well from view, in that part of the parking area of the Atlanta Center in Greenhills where Nida as member of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) continued to hold office long after I had left my position in 2001. Medel admitted putting the cord there himself. He showed how easily he did it, in one of the televised visits to the scene-of-the-crime. He had the height to reach the top of the wall ledge that also served as lighting cove; much shorter policemen who later searched the place did not know where to look for what. For my lawyer-friend, that was proof enough of Medel’s involvement, and yet I’m not a lawyer, so I cannot suppose as much.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100413com4.html

And God said: ‘Let there be MacArthur!’ AN OUTSIDERS VIEW Ken Fuller 04/13/2010

And God said: ‘Let there be MacArthur!’



AN OUTSIDERS VIEW
Ken Fuller
04/13/2010

This outsider recently came across a little book entitled MacArthur of the Philippines by Fernando Ruiz, a former law professor and judge. “It never occurred to her,” we are told of Douglas Macarthur’s second wife Jean, “that she might disagree with her husband about anything.” So it is with Mr. Ruiz.

False claims which have long been debunked are repeated, while negative assessments and facts are simply ignored, and others are cited out of context in order to show MacArthur in the best possible light.

Mr. Ruiz advises us that MacArthur “declined President Roosevelt’s offer to be the first high commissioner of the Commonwealth of the Philippines,” but omits to tell us that he had previously schemed for the position. Already the highest-paid soldier in the world (with his army pension and his salary as military advisor to the Commonwealth government), MacArthur had set his sights on a further source of income, only to learn that he would have to choose between continuing as military advisor or resigning in order to become high commissioner.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100413com5.html

Sick climate: Wounds of Copenhagen still fester ANALYSIS 04/13/2010

Sick climate: Wounds of Copenhagen still fester



ANALYSIS

04/13/2010

BONN — It was cast as a chance to revamp the UN arena on climate change, to rebuild trust and foment new thinking after the backbiting and sterility of the Copenhagen Summit last December.

Instead, three days of talks here under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at times resembled the movie “Groundhog Day,” where a grumpy skeptic is doomed to live the same events over and over again.

Almost as if the shock of Copenhagen had never happened, delegates squabbled afresh over the minutiae of the UNFCCC’s work schedule, over which bits of draft text to use as a blueprint for negotiation and the fate of a document widely dismissed as a threadbare compromise.
.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100413com6.html

France heads for a long Indian summer FEATURE 04/13/2010

France heads for a long Indian summer



FEATURE

04/13/2010

PARIS — India is flavor of the month in France with the spotlight swerving from the fairytale world of maharajas to tribal craftsmen in a buildup to a year-long celebration of one of the world’s richest and most diverse cultures.

A recent exhibition of priceless autochrome color photographs nearly 100 years old drew more than 100,000 visitors — a record for the Albert Kahn museum in Paris — captivating visitors with everyday scenes and palace life in a country whose native rulers behaved like God.

That was followed by an ongoing show at the Fondation Pierre Berge Yves Saint Laurent again showcasing the wildly decadent universe of the erstwhile ruling class who squandered millions a night at gaming tables in Nice and Biarritz, and ordered priceless jewellery from top Parisian bijoutiers.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100413com7.html

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