By Computerworld Philippines Staff
May 7, 2010

To secure an honest and orderly elections, local telco firm Eastern Communications and the Automated Election System (AES) Watch joined forces to focus primarily on the reporting of incidences related to the May 10 automated polls which will be the first time in Philippine history.

The AES Watch will use the so-called “Ushahidi crowdsourcing information software” to monitor the Philippine elections – the same platform deployed by monitoring groups for elections in India last year and in Sudan this year. Yet Eastern will utilize its tier 2 Data Center and connectivity to support the platform’s data management and transmission requirements.

AES Watch said the unique feature of the Ushahidi web-based platform is that the reports received are categorized and displayed on a digital map of the Philippines. The AES watch website (http://www.aeswatch.org) will be accessible to the public, and this, along with reports from various advocacy groups, will provide timely information with the hope that it will direct the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and proper authorities to address incidents that may affect the conduct of peaceful and credible elections.

Aside from monitoring elections, the AES Watch technology has been proven effective in monitoring emergency relief operations during the Haiti and Chile earthquakes; Ecology projects in Kenya, and the crisis from the Swine Flu pandemic. It was also used to track crime and violence in Atlanta, Kenya, South Africa and the Gaza Strip.  

Concerned citizens and other informants can simply send their incident reports via SMS, email or web. Moderators were assigned to upload incident reports to the website and will also be responsible to ferret out fabricated information – such as reports relating to different locations but coming from a single source – to ensure reliable reporting. TV stations and radio programs are expected to use the AES Watch generated data for reports and commentaries. 

The group added that aside from real-time reporting, the information can also be used for post-mortem analysis. – Tom S. Noda

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