miniZibaldone

Philippine Star “The Philippines is 400 times the size of Singapore, 350 times that of Hong Kong, eight times Taiwan, three times South Korea. In the 1930s to 1970s our country was in Asia second only to Japan. Asian countries saw Manila then with highest potential for development as financial center. Manila became the seat of the Asian Development Bank. “Then what happened? Corruption, criminality, climate change, poverty, pollution, incompetence, too much politics quickly brought us down. [...]  For three elections now, computer experts have been dissing the vote-counting machines of Venezuelan monopoly supplier Smartmatic. Reliability of the gadgets is doubtful. Worse, the Comelec ignores the safeguards set by the Election Automation Act of 2008. Worries abound that the multibillion-peso thingamajigs can be used to cheat a close presidential contest. Sensing things coming to a head, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines is striving to intervene. Election 2016 not...