I had a timely discussion with Norman Sison on twitter regarding automation. Let me say right now: that I am not against automation, at all. I’m just saying, automation and organizing young people to register and vote for 2010 is missing the point of what’s wrong with our politics.

The problem of Philippine democracy isn’t that during an election voters can be cheated. I’m not saying that isn’t happening or that it isn’t evil at all. I’m also not saying we shouldn’t go out of our way to ensure the sanctity of the ballot. For the same reason getting young people to vote isn’t the answer. I’m just saying neither is a magic bullet. Both solve entirely different problems. I’m saying is this: the problem facing Philippine-style democracy is the quality of candidates up for election isn’t exactly the best of the best.

Democracy is like a road. High quality paved highways are awesome: no pot holes to go through. The ride is smooth and great. Our Democracy is like EDSA. There are parts like those close to Makati where the roads are better (not perfect, just better). There are parts of EDSA where there are potholes and you just curse.

Now imagine the Philippines is like a car. And right now, the Philippines is a Kia. it is a car that gets us from point a to point b, just like any Toyota or Honda or Mitsubishi or Ford, etc. The Kia gives “decent speed and mileage”. It breaks down every so often but the parts are cheap and affordable and it is a car that Filipinos can afford to drive.

Since our analogy is a car, the politician is the driver. We the people sit behind as passengers while we pay our driver to shuttle us around. But our current crop of politician is just a lousy driver. He is reckless like EDSA bus drivers. More than that, the guy comes in late in the morning and is absent so often. When you ask the driver to get us to a location faster, he doesn’t think and make bad choices— so bad, we wind up in traffic.

You’ve been there right?

We can’t just fire the guy. Labour laws prohibit just firing someone without cause (i.e. Military take over, EDSA 4.0, etc). But it just so happen that the guy’s contract is up.

Your name is Joe: Joe Rizal. Your 18 year old daughter Maggie is so fed up with the guy that she’s now interested in helping you choose the next family driver (first time registered voter). Your wife, Sarah, is equally interested, as is your 21 year old son, John and your mother Jane and father, Adam who both live with you.

The current driver, Mike is also up in running to continue his service. You ask other people to submit resumes. You asked friends and co-workers to give you recommendations.

When everyone interested had submitted their intent, you call for a family meeting. Maggie likes Chiz because he is young and can sing and dance. Jane likes Manny, who is religious, is hardworking and has a family. Adam likes Mar, who is young, who he thinks gets him and is about to be married. John on the other hand doesn’t like the current crop of candidates so he says you should just retain Mike. And Sarah, wants to Anna the only female candidate.

Before Mike came into the Family’s service, you always voted. You wrote your choices in a piece of paper and your maid Esmaralda would count the votes.

There was an incident a few years ago that John, being so influential would look at the votes first and if he didn’t like the outcome would switch ballots to favor his choice.

When you and Jane found out— there was hell to pay. So the family, years later decided, to hire Charlie, the next door geek to write a piece of software that lets the family cast their vote in a secure and safe manner. And Charlie did. Since none of the family members were anything good in computing, it would take the hiring of another equally good hacker to game the system. [election automation, in case you weren't paying attention].

The night before the election, you (Joe) would pace back and forth. Majority rules, correct? and with one vote each, yours is the deciding vote.

Charlie’s software solves the problem of election cheating. Yet Joe thought, it doesn’t solve the problem that you have: you don’t know who to vote.

Joe doesn’t trust any of the candidates to drive his daughter to school safely.

Joe thinks Chiz and Mar are all sound and fury. They don’t check the break fluid, or if there is water in the radiator before they drive. They don’t care if the tires don’t have the right pressure. Certainly Chiz and Mar are at least half a degree better than the bus drivers in Edsa but they only know how to drive and not how to maintain.

Joe thinks Manny is so conservative and yet on the road he is as bad a driver as Mike. He is arrogant and judgmental. He drives like the bus drivers in Edsa, but yells at them for being bus drivers. On the other hand, he does know how to check the engine to make sure it is running. Every so often, at least.

Keeping Mike, Joe thought, would be disastrous. His health can’t stand another six years of Mike driving his family around. Mike is that stressful for Joe.

So Joe thought about it really deeply. All the candidates are really bad drivers. Some are slightly better than others, sure he really hasn’t found the candidate that he wants. Joe paced again. He was getting some money from work because of a promotion. Finally, he could sell the Kia and get a SUV. Would it matter if work gave him the money for an Expedition or money for a Mercedes Benz Stirling Moss or for that matter, keep driving a Kia if the man behind the wheel, was reckless?

Charlie’s software doesn’t help him get better candidates, right? It solves a different kind of problem: ensuring fair election. ensuring nobody gets cheated.

A car, new or old is just a mechanism to get his family gets from point a to point b. Safety because of good driving and day to day maintenance resides in the driver.

I think that’s the same problem the Philippines is facing in 2010 and beyond. That’s the point we’re missing with insisting first on automation or getting young people to vote.

Again: I’m not saying we shouldn’t automate. I’m not saying we shouldn’t get young people interested to vote. I’m saying those things are separate. I’m saying even if both threads are working properly that we get near absolute, no cheating in elections and that we get near majority of our young people to vote in an election, if the choices they have is garbage, and they can only elect garbage, we should still expect garbage. to put it simply: garbage in, garbage out.

In my humble opinion, the revolution that we need is to make political parties that mimic in some degree what the Internet is and what the social web is. That is, it should be be small pieces loosely joined.

Why small pieces?

Anyone willing should be a member should join. Its membership should include janitors as much as professional politicians. It should include teachers, as much as it includes athletes. It should include rich as much as the poor. It should include celebrities as much as university professors, as much as prima ballerinas and prostitutes. And their aggregate choice should determine who their candidate is for any given position. Their collective organization raises money for a campaign and vet candidates.

I am well aware it is strange and weird and totally left field. I am well aware of the cynicism we all know too well. I know it is easier said than done. I will admit, scary and stupid as it is: If you ask me how to kick it off— I wouldn’t know how or where to begin. I can only tell you that this is just what I know. It is in my most humble opinion that this, among all possible choices to begin to right this nation, even before we consider rewriting our constitution, and even before automation, even before we encourage young people to go out and vote, we must improve the choices we present our people. Taking the political party from the existing closed and elitist network that exist now and making it open, free, and engaging for people to participate in is disruptive, and more importantly a first, and a significant cog among many to get this country moving in the right direction. And then maybe, we can have a country that is liberal in what it receives and conservative in what it says.

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