The Philippine Computer Society (PCS) has recently entered into a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with election watchdog, the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), for the development of a new system that would pave the way for an effective information dissemination and monitoring of the planned automated elections in May 2010. PCS is the country’s premier and largest organization of information and communications technology (ICT) professionals in the country.

The MOA for the project dubbed as “Katibayan 2010” was signed during the 13th ICT Professionals Congress in Makati City on May 21, 2009.

According to Incoming PCS President Nelson Celis, the MOA was part of both organizations’ efforts to ensure a clean, honest and orderly automated elections by having a transparent and efficient electoral system.

“This partnership with PPCRV aims to inform the public of the developments surrounding the May 2010 elections. This will also lead to the development of a new infrastructure that will allow PCS and the PPCRV to determine the accuracy of the tabulation of votes during Election Day,” Celis said.

PCS and PPCRV’s partnership commits to provide volunteers espousing non-partisan and neutrality among involved partner-players.

Some 5,000 Junior PCS (JPCS) volunteers composed of IT students will help in training people on the ground as they engage in a new election system. For its part, PPCRV is banking on its nearly one million volunteers during election season to serve as watchers in the precincts who will coordinate with the JCPS volunteers for the up-to-date and accurate transmission of election data.

As ICT experts, PCS will identify and recommend ICT tools such as Internet, SMS and traditional broadcasting for the widest possible dissemination and collection of information. PCS members will also be sharing their expertise on technology transfer and administration for ground and central command operations.

As the official citizens arm of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), the PPCRV will be given a copy of the election returns during elections day. PPCRV volunteers will then encode data from these election returns with the assistance of PCS and transmit them to the PPCRV headquarters for tabulation.

“The results of our (PPCRV and PCS) count are very important,” said PPCRV Chairman Henrietta de Villa.

“The MOA will ensure that we will have a means to verify whether the results of the Commission of Elections (COMELEC) tally will be the same with that of our count,” said De Villa. “It also puts us in touch with the rest of the country.”

De Villa also stressed that, “It’s important to assure the public that there is a way to validate the results of the 2010 automated polls.”

Should the results of the PPCRV/PCS count differ with that of the COMELEC tally, De Villa said manual counting of the ballots may be pushed. “If the results are different, we will go to recounting of the ballots by re-feeding them to the machines,” De Villa added.