THE INITIAL REPORTS FROM THE PARTIAL resumption of the field testing of the voting machines, this time with the new compact flash memory cards, seem positive. For instance, one precinct in Parañaque City on Thursday yielded ?perfect? results, while another one managed to do so after a computer technician restarted the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machine. But these results are an outright plus only in contrast to the spectacular failure of all voting machines tested last Monday. That the tests are resuming mere days before the elections remains a matter of great public concern.

Smartmatic executive Cesar Flores told a news conference that the ?fix? to the massive technical glitch suffered last Monday, when wrongly encoded memory cards failed to read the test ballots in mock elections, was on its way to being completed. ?The plans are moving as expected, and even better than expected. We have more than 35,000 cards configured and shipment started last [Wednesday] night. We received confirmation that testing and sealing resumed in places like Makati, giving 100 percent accurate results. This hurdle is being passed and we will have complete automated elections on May 10.?

Would that it were so, but his statement is an unqualified positive only in relation to Monday?s disaster. That a total of 76,000 memory cards need to be replaced, then tested, then sealed, all in four days, remains a matter of great public concern.

We can ask both the Commission on Elections and its automation contractor, Smartmatic, the same question we posed Thursday: Can you guarantee that no more technical glitches will occur on election day?

The answer, we fear, remains no. Our latest attempt to automate the election process has yielded a track record of demonstrated incompetence: from the original choice of a machine that leaves no paper trail; to the removal of safeguards like time logs; to the high-profile failure, for preventable causes, of basic tests; to last Monday?s deployment of memory cards carrying the wrong instructions.

If, by some miracle, the great majority of the voting machines finally work as originally advertised on election day, then well and good. But it would be sheer idiocy not to prepare for a manual count.

The Comelec has long said it is prepared for a 30-percent manual count?in other words, that as many as 22,000-plus voting machines may malfunction or be inoperable on May 10. We had earlier criticized this provision, but now, in the harsh light of the continuing technical travails of Smartmatic and its machines, we urge the Comelec to prepare instead for a 100-percent manual count.

If the PCOS machines work as promised, then there would be no need to resort to the manual system. But if they fail, and they fail in the proportions suggested by the scale of last Monday?s failed tests, then at least the Comelec would be ready, in spite of such a failure, to meet its main mandate: to conduct elections.

With four days to go, the Comelec barely has enough time to print the election returns, the statements of votes, and other election forms required by a full manual count. It needs to get started right away.

The additional expenses will be substantial, of course, but by one estimate the Comelec has at least P4 billion left unused from the approved budget for automation; that will be more than sufficient. The Comelec can also rest assured that, in the matter of a manual count, the majority of the public will support the extra cost. History?s lesson is clear: the Filipino people take their elections seriously. The results of those elections may be open to dispute (or scholarly derision), but there it is: the people want their elections.

It is the bounden responsibility of the Comelec, under Chairman Jose Melo, to ensure that there will be elections on Monday?automated, if possible, but manual, if necessary.