Elections as an instrument of political control 155 There was a wide disconnect between what Melo claimed to have accomplished as Comelec chairman and what independent observers and information technology experts who closely monitored the May 2010 elections said about it. For instance, Melo was quoted as saying, “I am stepping down condent in the knowledge that the country's rst automated elections held last May 10 had led to one of the most credible and unquestionable poll results in the nation's history.” Contrast that statement with that of Transparency International-Philippines president (and former Judge) Dolores Español who charged Comelec with hiding from the public the real truth behind the glitches of the automated election system and said, “The Comelec has been the most untransparent in the whole election exercise.” Other independent observers have, more directly, branded what Melo (and his merry band of commissioners) accomplished as “a criminal act”. Perpetuating a awed system With the retirement of Melo, President Benigno Aquino III appointed election lawyer Sixto Brillantes Jr. as the new Comelec chairman. Brillantes – who had been Aquino's election lawyer from 1998 to 2010 and whose rm was in the midst of collecting P8-million from Smartmatic on behalf of a client – clearly reveled in his new role and immediately demonstrated that he was hellbent on perpetuating the Smartmatic system. Notwithstanding the already discovered aws in the Smartmatic-supplied automated election system and all the failures and anomalies observed and reported by citizens' monitoring groups (including nationwide organizations of information technology experts) in the use of the PCOS voting machines and system software for the May 2010 elections, the new Comelec chairman was obviously committed to institutionalizing an automated system of election rigging under the control of a ruling elite possibly tied to foreign interests. Indeed, a conspiracy now appeared to be in play to make the results of all the country's future elections capable of being effortlessly rigged by a select few and sold to the highest bidders or dispensed to pre-selected candidates. Quite disingeneously, Brillantes tried to use a purported resolution of the Comelec Advisory Committee (CAC) that recommended the continued use of the Smartmatic machines and system software. Reacting in protest, the representatives of the Philippine Computer Society, the Philippine Electronics and Telecommunications Federation, and the Chief Information Ofcers Forum stated that they were completely unaware of such a CAC meeting wherein said resolution was passed. If such a meeting was held, they said, then it must have been one that specically excluded persons with the technical expertise required to properly evaluate the performance of Smartmatic's system. In fact, the Philippine Computer Society had been forced to issue a formal Board resolution reiterating its strong objection to the use of the Smartmatic system for future elections. In its resolution, the PhilComSoc said that the