The May 13 elections are almost upon us.

Recent developments indicate that the Comelec has abandoned all pretenses of making the elections credible after junking calls for a source code review and after admitting that they do not have the source code for the automated elections. This is indeed bad news, but hardly surprising since Comelec has shown resistance to calls by various watchdog groups to put in place safeguards in the AES.

A week before the elections, the Final Testing and Sealing of the PCOS machines will take place. In the 2010 elections, it was during the FTS that the major problems in the programming of the CF Cards were discovered, leading to a massive recall of the CF cards barely a week before the elections.

We are calling on the Filipino people, the media, along with the the various political parties and candidates, to closely monitor the FTS which will take place as early as May 2. We call on the people to go to the precincts during the scheduled FTS in their area and to observe the conduct of the tests. There is sufficient basis to believe, based on mock polls, PCOS demonstrations and even the Overseas Absentee Voting in Hong Kong, that there remains major problems with the AES.

For those wishing to monitor the FTS, you can download this simple checklist HERE.

And on election day, let us continue our monitoring work. It is through our vigilance that we can hold accountable those who wish to undermine the conduct of the elections.