GIGO and ‘tado

GIGO and ‘Tado

Zorro had his Bernardo. The Lone Ranger had his Tonto. And with the much trumped Election Automation comes GIGO and Tado.

I first came across the term GIGO as a probinsyano in the Sampaloc district’s hood in Basilio. I took the jeepney to Recto, got off in Morayta, and sat through the COBOL and RPG/1 computer programming course. One fine day the instructor wrote the term GIGO on the blackboard. The probinsyano in me was wondering, was he misspelling gago?

Garbage In, Garbage Out – GIGO

A quick visit to the wiki provides the backdrop on GIGO:

Garbage In, Garbage Out (abbreviated to GIGO, coined as a pun on First-In, First-Out) is a phrase in the field of computer science or Information Communication technology. It is used primarily to call attention to the fact that computers will unquestioningly process the most nonsensical of input data and produce nonsensical output. It was most popular in the early days of computing, but applies even more today, when powerful computers can spew out mountains of erroneous information in a short time. The actual term “Garbage in, Garbage out”, coined as a teaching mantra by George Fuechsel, an IBM 305 RAMAC technician/instructor in New York, soon contracted to the acronym GIGO. Early programmers were required to test virtually each program step and cautioned not to expect that the resulting program would “do the right thing” when given imperfect input. The underlying principle was noted by the inventor of the first programmable device, who said: “     On two occasions I have been asked,—”Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?” … I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.     ” — Charles Babbage It is also commonly used to describe failures in human decision making due to faulty, incomplete, or imprecise data. For example, a poorly typeset TeX document will look bad because the user did not write the TeX source well. Garbage In, Gospel Out is a more recent expansion of the acronym. It is a sardonic comment on the tendency to put excessive trust in ‘computerized’ data, and on the propensity for individuals to blindly accept what the computer says. Because the data goes through the computer, people tend to believe it. “Decision-makers increasingly face computer-generated information and analyses that could be collected and analyzed in no other way. Precisely for that reason, going behind that output is out of the question, even if one has good cause to be suspicious. In short, the computer analysis becomes the gospel.”     ” Non-computer-related use of the term The term can be used in any field in which it is difficult to create a good result when given bad input. For example, in translation, it is difficult to convert a source text that is confused, illogical or missing pertinent information into a quality translation. A translator may use the phrase “Garbage in, garbage out” to explain the importance of good source text to a client. As another example, in quality implications, the quality of the materials a manufacturer procures directly affects the quality of the finished product.

Electoralism

The up and coming automation of the Philippines 2010 Presidential and General elections seems to be hailed as the holy grail of the Philippine democratic process.

Indeed, elections are of vital importance in more countries around the world, as democracy spreads to all its corners. While a larger number of the world’s people are winning the right to elect their leaders in free and competitive elections, such elections are vastly  misunderstood by the electorate, and electoral bodies vary from one country to another.

For the most part, the masses delude themselves believing that by their vote, change will come. As if voting itself, and not the processes leading to the vote, is the end all and be all of democracy. Take an essentially feudal country, make it undergo elections, and voila – democracy, right? Nothing can be further from the truth. Modern political scientists refer to the phenomenon as electoralism. The wiki elaborates:

Electoralism is a term first used by Terry Karl, professor of political science at Stanford University, to describe a “half-way” transition from authoritarian rule toward democratic rule. As a topic in the dominant party system political science literature, electoralism describe a situation where the transition out of hard-authoritarian rule is initiated and managed by the incumbent regime. However, due to the dominant position of the incumbent regime throughout the transition process, the transition fails to attain the institutional qualities of liberal democracy. Other terms, such as guided transition or managed transition have been used to describe this process. Under electoralism, the regime essentially conducts the electoral aspects of democractic governance in a relatively ‘free and fair’ manner. Massive acts of voting fraud and election-day intimidation are essentially absent. However, other features of democracy, such as the rule of law and institutional separation of powers, are absent under electoralism. The entire election process is skewed in favor of the incumbent regime. The media tends to ignore or paint the opposition in a negative light, the high court and election commission tends to make judgements in favor of the incumbent, and on some occasions, opposition rallies are denied or canceled by the police.

Electoralism, GIGO, and Einstein

It appears that Electoralism and GIGO are parallel concepts in the sense that these deal with flawless processing of flawed inputs – which of course, leads to flawed outputs.

Imagine an Erap Estrada or GMA clone landslide, counting over in hours. Whew, did we just speed up the Philippines doomsday clock? Or, imagine yourself in a BMW X5, pedal to the metal, such luxury, such comfort, such torque, oh wait, did I just go over the cliff? Damn, that’s so tarantated, so tarantado, so ‘tado. BAM.

It looks like the wider masses are still using the same tired criteria for evaluating candidates (winnability), and are expecting change. I can hear Einstein chuckling.

Without the necessary attitudes conducive to a functioning democracy, it will be a long dark night for the Philippines. The Philippine political culture needs to change.

Voter Education

Automating the elections is one side of a coin, the other side of the coin is voter education. Without educated and enlightened voters, expect more of the same political stagnation – and along with it, economic stagnation.

There are multiple tracks to voter education. The strategic view is to nurture a civic mindedness from the moment a citizen enters the formal educational system in the hope of moulding enlightened responsible citizens. The tactical view involves reaching out to the registered voters who will be selecting candidates in an electoral cycle. Not only should voters learn more about the machines they will be using, the booths they will go to, the names of the candidates. Voters also need to be educated on the details about the various candidates and how the candidates positions and issues will affect their personal circumstances. Certainly, that is a tall order, it is hard, but not impossible, and may in fact be, fun to achieve.

Voter education events can take many forms, shapes, and sizes:
* Candidate debates
* Database on candidates
* Issue-based forums
* Flyers, blogs, email communications, websites
* For incumbents, a review of their performance against their campaign promises
* Dialogs – issues, candidates, the electoral process

Sink or Swim

The alternative is quite clear – when GIGO and electoralism comes to town, gago and tarantado wins, we feel tarantated (natataranta in tangalog), BAM. Crash override, it is system meltdown all over again. Sigh

If we want this election to work out, we should not only focus on the automation process, but we also need to focus on the processes that we use to come up with the choices that we make.

We will reap what we sow.

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