On the assumption that you heard/read the SONA of the President last month, (July 2000), identify at least 3 areas related to ICT and identify how these areas can improve our quality of life.

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State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2009 of President Gloria Arroyo



1. Sa telecommunications naman, inatasan ko ang Telecommunications Commission na kumilos na tungkol sa mga sumbong na dropped calls at mga nawawalang load sa cellphone. We need to amend the Commonwealth-era Public Service Law. And we need to do it now.

-Cellular phones are important and it is part of our daily activities. This day, there are almost no different from telecommunication and Information Technology (IT) Field. Both of these fields collaborate to provide what we enjoy from our telecommunication operators. We can enjoy Short Message Service (SMS), Brew, internet, blackberry, Iphone, email, mobile blogging, and others telecommunication service because that collaboration. And it is not only for Value Added Service (VAS), this collaboration also do voice service as telecommunication core business.

2. Kung noong nakaraan, lumakas ang electronics, today we are creating wealth by developing the BPO and tourism sectors as additional engines of growth. Electronics and other manufactured exports rise and fall in accordance with the state of the world economy. But BPO remains resilient. With earnings of $6 billion and employment of 600,000, the BPO phenomenon speaks eloquently of our competitiveness and productivity. Let us have a Department of ICT.

-This day, there are almost no different from telecommunication and Information Technology (IT) Field. Both of these fields collaborate to provide what we enjoy from our telecommunication operators. We can enjoy Short Message Service (SMS), Brew, internet, blackberry, Iphone, email, mobile blogging, and others telecommunication service because that collaboration. And it is not only for Value Added Service (VAS), this collaboration also do voice service as telecommunication core business.

3. Automated Election

What is Automated Election Sytem(AES)?

* Computerized voting is a superior form of casting ballots. It allows for fairer and faster voting. It takes many forms with different processes but how it is implemented depends on the technological facilities allocated for the elections procedure. Automated election system (AES) is a system that uses appropriate technology to accomplish and aid such tasks as voting, counting, consolidating, canvassing, and transmission of election result, and other electoral process. Republic Act No. 9369, which is the Amended Elections Automation Law provides for the use of two forms of AES.


* The voters have to shade the oval which corresponds to their candidate of choice using pencil in a specially scanned paper ballot. It is composed of 2 Laptops, 2 Digital Scanners, 2 card readers, 1 hub and 1 printer. The votes in the shaded ballots will then be scanned and counted using an Automated Counting Machine (ACM).


* The first is a paper-based election system defined as “a type of automated election system that uses paper ballots, records and counts votes, tabulates, consolidates, canvasses and transmits electronically the results of the vote count.” It uses the Optical Mark Reader (OMR) Technology.


* The second form is the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE). It is defined as “a type of automated election system that uses electronic ballots, records votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro-optical components that can be activated by the voter, processes data by means of a computer program, records voting data and ballot images, and transmits voting results electronically.” voters are provided with a Voting Pad where the photos of candidates can be selected by pressing on the desired picture. Once the vote is final, a receipt is generated after pressing ‘BOTO‘. The Board of Election Inspectors keeps the receipt just in case there are complaints raised.

It is feasible. An automated election, for a fact, cannot fully prevent cheating but only certain forms of it could be prevented through check and balance. It is also a fact that there is no system that is tamper proof. The following are plausible forms of check and balance: paper audit trail of ballots, protection of software source code, no switching of ballot boxes, the testing of the technologies, and the addition of some amendments on the Senate Bill No. 2231. The Automated Election Bill in the Philippines requires that there should be a voter verifiable paper audit trail. This feature of the bill will reduce the incidents of vote buying and increase the security and credibility of the people’s votes. The voter verifiable audit trail enables the voters to review and edit their votes. On the same note the right amount of protection on the automated elections' software source code would prevent hackers on hacking on to the computers for counting and thus prevents the tampering on the number of votes.

http://iskwiki.upd.edu.ph/index.php/Online/Automated_Elections_in_the_Philippines