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Winning
Over an Audience
By Michael Alan Hamlin
April 19, 2004
I had an interesting time last Friday. The occasion
was the First National Summit on Critical Information and Communications
Infrastructure Protection. Sounds awfully geeky, but it was actually
an interesting conference, and included some top-flight speakers
including executive secretary Alberto G. Romulo, National Computer
Center director general Tim Diaz de Rivera, Task Force for the Security
of Critical Infrastructure (TFSCI) head Abraham A. Purugganan, and
CIO Forum Fred Torres.
The conference was the brainchild of TFSCI and the CIO Forum - an
association of government CIOs.
Stephen Cutler, legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy, was also
well received. The audience of about 300 government and private-sector
CIOs succumbed to the fascination of hearing how cybercops track
down cybercrooks. And from what I could tell, Mr. Cutler clearly
enjoys his work. U.S. assistant secretary for defense Mark Traynor
showed in a very graphic way how 9/11 was also a cyber tragedy.
The Verizon building, which housed 300,000 Manhattan voice lines,
was literally across the street from ground zero, and falling debris
knocked enormous holes in the building and communication networks.
But the session I found most intriguing was mine. Not because I
was the moderator, naturally, but because the panelists had vastly
contrasting perspectives on an important issue, and vigorously asserted
their viewpoints. The principal for the panel was Philip E. Juico,
or Popoy, the former Agrarian Reform secretary and now dean of the
Graduate School of Business at De La Salle University Professional
Schools.
Joining him on the panel were Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos and
Japanese IT Standards Examination of the Philippines Foundation
president Maricor Akol. And we had a fiery topic, "The Tradeoff
Between the Right to Privacy and Cyber Infrastructure Security."
In fact, this topic is so sensitive that the conference owners had
trouble getting anyone to argue in the affirmative. Juico graciously
agreed to saddle up to the issue by talking about a site his firm
and others have developed gratis to help registered voters find
their precincts on Election Day.
When completed, registered voters in most urban areas of the country
will have the means to identify their precinct, view a map of its
location, and study a photograph of the actual site over the Internet.
All this happens when voters log in. The site is ready, but Juico
is awaiting the list of registered voters from Comelec before taking
it live. Everyone on the panel agreed that the site - which also
provides information to texters - is a wonderful idea. But that's
about all they agreed on.
If you're wondering what finding a precinct has to do with a national
ID, it is that the need for accurate voter registration is often
used as an excuse to implement one. In fact, when I asked Abalos
if a national ID system would be useful in identifying citizens
qualified to vote, he responded with an emphatic, "Yes, it
would help so much." Abalos feels that bloated voters lists
are a big enough problem than Comelec has spent around P1 billion
trying to clean them up.
Ms. Akol feels differently, which will surprise no one who has followed
the controversy associated with Comelec's efforts to automate next
month's polls. She is one of seven individuals who sued Abalos and
Comelec before the Supreme Court to nullify a P1.3 billion contract
for the purchase of equipment for computerizing the vote. Early
this year, the Supreme Court threw out the contract.
Following the decision, Ms. Akol was quoted in news reports saying,
"My faith in the country's justice system has been restored."
But last Friday, Abalos lamented the decision, suggesting that the
nation had been done a terrible disservice. So when Abalos found
merit in a national ID, Ms. Akol quickly responded, "At what
price? Another P1 billion?"
There are not many instances in which 300 people can be in a room
and you can hear a pin drop, but this was one - at least in between
the exchanges. Ms. Akol lived up to her image as one of the Philippines'
most powerful women in IT, forcefully arguing her contention that
Comelec has wasted money on unnecessary cleansing of voters' lists
and inappropriate technology.
Abalos, on the other hand, played the part of a politician expertly,
appearing dreadfully wounded by the allegations made against him
and the government agency he heads. Alleging that he had once been
a victim of electoral fraud as a result of padded registration lists,
Abalos emotionally declared that his intention was merely to make
certain no other well-meaning politician suffer the same fate.
I don't know who is more right than the other in this argument.
I do know the back-and-forth made for a great panel discussion.
What I can say about the argument is that Ms. Akol provided a rational
albeit vigorous argument. Abalos, on the other hand, appealed to
the hearts, rather than the minds, of his audience. And I dare say,
if the audience had been the Supreme Court, he'd still have his
voting machines.
(Michael Alan Hamlin is the managing
director of consultancy TeamAsia and the author of three books on
Asian economies and companies. His latest book is Marketing Asian
Places, of which he is a co-author (Wiley, 2001), and he is currently
at work on High Visibility: The Making and Marketing of Asian Professionals
into Celebrities. Write him at mahamlin@teamasia.com.).
Copyright © 2003 Michael Alan
Hamlin. All Rights Reserved.
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