WHAT is happening to our republic in the run-up to the 2010 presidential elections is like being placed in a circumstance similar to the king of Shakespeare classic play—was it Hamlet?—where the hero-king said, “to be or not to be.” In our case, the monologue of the Commission on Election (Comelec) is, “to go manual or to automate.”

I have no intention to belittle the current dilemma this country is confronted with regarding the 2010 presidential elections.

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Comelec’s efforts to automate the voting in the May 10, 2010 elections is not one to be taken lightly considering that until this moment the poll automation issue has not been resolved.

Until now, the signing of the contract with the winning bidder has not happened.

The more disturbing part of the dilemma, however, is that automation may not have been possible for next year’s elections from the very beginning. This is a point that Rep. Pablo Garcia brought out in the TV talk show we co-hosted with Manny Rabacal and Andy Manatad over Cebu Catholic Television Network’s Channel 47. Garcia said that there are certain requirements to be undertaken before full poll automation could be done.

One of these is to pilot the automation first prior to its full implementation. This requirement has not been fully done.

Besides, the automation the Comelec is trying to implement is merely focused on transmission and counting of ballots from the precincts, not yet the casting of the ballot itself. Thus, the automation supposedly to be implemented next year would only hasten the counting and have the election results known earlier.

What Congressman Pabling said is that the talk of computerizing the 2010 elections is actually a will-o’-the-wisp since time constraint and legal procedural issues are in the way of its legitimate realization. What the Comelec is doing instead is placing President Arroyo in the awkward circumstance of being roundly criticized for putting a monkey wrench on Comelec’s effort to automate next year’s elections, the counting that is, not the voting yet.

Just the same, however, partially automating next year’s elections would have been better than none at all, since the coming out of a near honest result would already lend our elections a measure of credibility. Consider that what will be counted would be what the ballot boxes truly contained.

But is a legally-done automation still possible under the circumstances? Or should we just settle for the manual voting and be legally right in the meantime? What is important, I think, is to hold the 2010 elections no matter what.