Press Release
March 17, 2009

Be the guiding light in the 2010 poll automation, Gordon urges Lente

Independent Senator Richard J. Gordon today called on the Legal Network for Truthful Elections (LENTE) to be the light that would guide the people in the automation of the May 2010 elections to ensure clean, honest and credible polls.

Gordon, author of Republic Act (RA) 9369 or the amended Automated Elections System law, tapped the organization even as he urged the Ateneo School of Law to lead schools in educating the voters on the poll automation next year.

"Why don't we show light today? We will have automated elections in 2010, and we need to prepare and guide our people" he said at the Lente's "Are We Ready? A Forum on Election Automation" held at Ateneo School of Law, Makati City .

"We should have education campaign, and all should participate in that. We should try to test it (automated elections) in schools since this is going to be an automated election for the first time in the history of our country," he added.

It may be recalled the senator pushed for the automation of the 2008 Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) elections which served as a litmus test for the country's capability to adapt to the election automation under RA 9369.

Local and international election observers hailed the success of the ARMM elections which indicated the people are ready for an automated election system to put an end to retail and wholesale cheating that have often marred past elections in the country.

Lente is the first nationwide network of lawyers, law students, paralegals and other trained volunteers organized by various non-partisan groups engaged in election monitoring work.

In the 2007 elections, the organization deployed more than 100 volunteers in most of the cities and municipalities in the country to monitor the electoral exercise.

Gordon, a lawyer by profession himself, also urged Lente to be eternally vigilant and to closely monitor the preparations, including the bidding process of automation machines, to be taken by the Commission on Elections for the automation.

"Lente should also monitor the bidding to ensure integrity and transparency of the process. You have to go on and continue to be eternally vigilant and make sure that you participate because eternal vigilance is the price of democracy," he said.

"We have to watch out for all forms of cheating, whether large or small. So those who are contemplating on cheating the next elections, they would be frustrated by the speed of our automated elections. If we remain vigilant, we will make it," he added.

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