Chiz marrying Heart before 2016 polls

Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero, former senator Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr., and former elections commissioner Augusto Lagman talked politics, graft and corruption, and the 2016 polls at the Kapihan sa Manila at the Diamond Hotel last Monday. But the tidbit that perked the ears of the people in the audience was the admission by Chiz that he will marry actress Heart Evangelista before the elections are held. It will be a private family ceremony, he joked, because he is afraid someone in the crowd may shout, “Stop the wedding!”

Chiz also revealed that he has stopped smoking. He used to be a chain-smoker.

Did Heart tell him to stop?

“No, my smoking doesn’t bother her,” the senator said, explaining that he stopped because when he took up jogging and boxing for exercise, he quickly became short of breath.

He went to his doctor, who conducted a thorough physical examination. The doctor gave him the good news first: His lungs were still clear, nothing there. Then the bad news: He will surely have lung problems if he doesn’t stop smoking.

That did it, he decided to stop smoking, cold turkey. He doesn’t want to make Heart a widow.

On to more serious affairs of the Senate: Chiz said that while the Senate has passed the freedom of information bill, he is not optimistic that the House of Representatives will do the same.

“We pass the FOI bill every year,” he said, “but the House thumbs it down.”

The House also tries to pull off Charter change every year, he continued, but the Senate thumbs it down.

What about the inquiry of the Senate blue ribbon committee into the pork barrel scam? When will it end?

It looks like it may continue for a long time yet, Chiz said. The Senate has barely scratched the surface. It will have to look into the involvement of the others mentioned by the whistle-blowers and implicated by the Commission on Audit.

Will it result in any legislation to stop graft?

“There already is legislation,” Chiz replied. “We already stopped the PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund, the official name of the pork barrel). I am sure there will be others later.”

Why is the Office of the Ombudsman taking such a long time to file cases in the Sandiganbayan?

It is being careful and thorough, he said. Remember, there are many accused and there are truckloads of evidence. Time is needed to sift through that. It wants to make sure that its charges will stick.

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Ex-senator Pimentel was asked about the parting of ways between his PDP-Laban party and Vice President Jejomar Binay. Did Binay talk to him before making the announcement?

“No, he did not,” Pimentel said, “but that’s okay with me. No hard feelings.”

Pimentel admitted being uncomfortable with Binay’s desertion of the party because he, Pimentel, is teaching at the University of Makati, which is Binay turf.

Who will PDP-Laban support for the presidency?

“You are asking the wrong Pimentel,” the ex-senator said. “Ask Koko,” he said, referring to his son, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, who now heads the party. “I am no longer active in the affairs of the party.”

Doesn’t he consult his father?

He does, sometimes, said Nene. “But I am busy with other things.”

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Ex-commissioner Lagman was asked about the 2016 presidential election and proposals to go back to manual counting because the vote-counting machines cannot be trusted. What would he recommend?

“A hybrid,” Lagman said, “manual counting at the precinct level, and automated [counting] in the canvassing.”

It is not the counting at the precinct level that takes a long time, it is the canvassing, he explained. Manual precinct counting takes only several hours. It is the canvassing that takes many days, and even weeks. And that is where “dagdag-bawas” (vote-padding and -shaving) occurs.

There should be transparency in the counting of votes, he said. The voters should know if and how their votes are counted. With so many watchers and kibitzers in the precinct, it would be difficult to cheat there. However, it is in the canvassing of votes, when the results are transmitted to the municipal, then to the provincial, and finally to the national canvassing boards, where cheating happens.

“Remember that in automated counting, the precinct results are contained in that tiny piece of plastic whose contents are transmitted to the canvassing boards,” Lagman said. “Sometimes, the [vote-counting] machine goes out of whack and the plastic is brought by hand to another machine to be transmitted to the canvassing board. That little piece of plastic is the equivalent of the ballot box that contains the ballots and is taken to the canvassing centers.

“What will happen if that piece of plastic is hijacked and changed with another one containing different results? It would be easy to do that.”

With manual counting, the precinct results will be known to the people and can be checked when sent by machine to and received by the canvassing board. Similarly, results sent from the municipal level to the provincial and finally to the national canvassing boards can be checked. With full automatic counting, the people are in the dark as to what the machines are doing.

“Many countries that used to have fully automated counting have gone back to manual counting,” Lagman said, “to have transparency in the counting.”

What’s more, he added, the hybrid counting would be much cheaper than a fully automatic one.

What about the vote-counting machines that the Commission on Elections has bought? What are we going to do with them?

They can be donated to schools and government offices for their use, he said.