Bayan Mo, iPatrol Mo (BMPM) Forum

What a day! Despite the fully-loaded schedule, somehow, I was able to make time for last Monday's (February 11, 2013) Bayan Mo, iPatrol Mo (BMPC) Forum by ABS-CBN held at the 5th Floor of Henry Sy Sr. Hall. It was actually an impromptu attendance for me. I was bothered by a personal dilemma until my friends made me realize that I had no other choice because of a conflict in schedule.

The PCOS Machine

The forum was a worthwhile experience. There were plenty of professional speakers that discussed different matters regarding the upcoming senatorial elections 2013. I actually learned a lot and things were made clearer for me. At the start of the forum, the host, Nina Corpuz, asked for a raise of hands regarding on the number of registered voters. It was saddening to find out that there was only quite a few students who actually registered. The reason behind could either be because some students were not aware of the registration period or simply they ran out of time to register.

Every aspect of the upcoming elections was covered by the forum - from the core reason why every individual must practice responsible voting to securing the different locations for voting and finally the philosophy behind choosing our own bet for candidacy. The most interesting part for me was the demonstration of the PCOS Machine for the elections because I can somehow relate to it as an IT student. They say that it has plenty of bugs before; fortunately, those have been fixed now as they claim it to be. I learned from the demonstration that it uses a scannable sheet and stores each completed form as an image in its 4 GigaByte (GB) memory that is divided in two partitions. In addition, the ballots scanned are kept inside the machine for manual counting of votes.The machine also features a 128-bit encryption key that ensures security for each scanned form. To even spice things up, it is connected online to send real-time vote counts. What is left from it is for proofreading purposes made possible by a key that unlocks the machine and a printable summary report.

This new electoral system is captivating to know. The only flaw I see, in my own opinion, is the lack of memory for the PCOS machine. I feel like the 4GB of storage for images, regardless of the quality but most likely high quality, would not suffice for a vicinity that is more than 5000 in population.

If we do the math, say like if we assume that a high resolution image is at least 2.5 MegaByte (MB), and every registered citizen in a locality gets to vote via the PCOS machine, that is :

2.5MB x 2 images(for back-to-back scanning per ballot) =  5MB per person

5MB x 5000 people = 25,000MB or in GigaByte, if we divide the value by 1000 (1GB = 1000MB), overall, it's a whooping 25GB in a specific location.

I hope things would go well and that my math is wrong. :p

Of course, we all pray for a clean, safe and violence-free elections. Regardless if we are registered or not, eligible to vote or not, being a part of this country means getting involved in the happenings. We have to be aware of these things because the responsibility and the ability to change things lie in our hands. If we all share a vision of transformation for betterment and progression, we could make that change. Ako Ang Simula(I am the beginning). Bayan Mo, iPatrol Mo. Tayo Na!

Finally, here's a video by one of the most influential figures of the silent era to inspire us all this upcoming elections. :)