In a post on Facebook today De La Salle University (DLSU) professor Antonio Contreras announced his intent to sue University of the Philippines (UP) physics professor Ian Vega for libel. Contreras writes…
Today is the day I say enough is enough.
I have decided to file a criminal case of libel against one physics professor. And it is appropriate that I have to start with another academic.
Now, I am angry.
University of the Philippines physics professor Ian Vega
This follows a comment made by Vega on Facebook (screen-captured by Contreras here) in which he attacked Contreras using baldly-false claims about the latter’s qualifications, his motives in spearheading a campaign to expose electoral fraud seemingly perpetrated by the Philippines’ Commission on Elections (COMELEC) and his intellectual capacity as a DLSU academic. In his Facebook post, Contreras quotes Vega saying…
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[Contreras is] either slow, too proud or paid. Whatever the case, he’s a sorry excuse for an academic. There I said it.
Contreras, working with expert statistician David Yap had been working hard collecting and analysing data to validate long-held suspicions that the COMELEC and its pet supplier of voting technology, Smartmatic, have conspired not only to rig this year’s elections but also that of the 2010 and 2013 elections. On all occasions, Philippine corporate media had seemingly successfully and consistently buried stories to do with incidents that point to this suspect partnership.
Initial data analyses in the early days of the vote count revealed disturbing patterns in the ensuing results over the period since Smartmatic employee Marlon Garcia allegedly implemented an unauthorised change in the system. These patterns were spotted by independent observers one of whom was Yap.
Since then, Contreras and Yap have been the subject of a concerted vilification campaign from various quarters allied with the Liberal Party and its embattled vice presidential candidate Leni Robredo in an effort to discredit a mounting popular and long-overdue movement to call out irregularities in the way the COMELEC has been managing elections in the Philippines and keeping suppliers of critical voting technology under proper control.
Many Filipinos look to both Contreras and Yap for leadership in a growing movement to rid the Philippines of a long tradition of election cheating. Anonymous Philippines for its part have announced their own on-going non-partisan investigation into electoral fraud and have indicated that they are close to submitting the results of that investigation to the proper authorities. Recently, IT experts hired by COMELEC and Smartmatic came forward and blew the whistle on nonsensical orders they received from the COMELEC to recall defective Smartmatic vote counting machines (VCMs) and consolidated counting servers (CCSs) to their Sta Rosa Laguna offices rather than release standby units to replace them.
The COMELEC, being a government agency is not protected by any notion of “presumption of innocence” as its apologists assert and, as such, burden of proof of the soundness of its systems and processes as far as protecting the integrity of the vote falls squarely upon it.
Filipinos are waiting; in the case of Contreras and Yap as well as all of the victims of this travesty to Philippine democracy, waiting bravely.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
I am positive Messers Contreras and Yap will do their best to prove that the VP race was a concerted effort by the Yellows and the COMELEC to deny the Filipino electorate a clean, honest, orderly and peaceful election results. The interest and integrity of the ballot is the main point of contention here, not the candidates. The sovereign Filipino people demanded it and these gentlemen will do just that. Although I support Sen. Bongbong Marcos, I will still accept defeat if the victory of any of the contenders won fair and square. Electoral fraud was done in the past and misfits, not to mention those who “won” through cheating have no place working in an honest to goodness government.
No wonder – the Libelal Party is one big light-absorbing Black Hole.
Oops, sorry about that. Well you know how Japsonites can often confuse “l” and “r”.
Go ahead. Physics professors are not afraid of jail time (they can solve as many delicious equations to their heart’s delight no matter how dark a hole you put them in); so let the libel suit proceed.
And still COMELEC claims this was their best erection yet, este election. The nerve!
It is very sad, that these COMELEC people, who are the forefront of securing the integrity and honesty of our electoral system, were used by Aquino and his “Gang of Seven” to commit Electoral Fraud. These COMELEC people prostituted themselves, and facilitated the cheating in 2010, 2013 in the 2016 election…at the order or bribes of Aquino and his “Gang of Seven”…
I am ready to vomit, for what these people have done to our country !
I really admire Mr. D. Yap and Mr. A. Contreras. They called out an anomaly early on in the counting while this signed document by 104 scientists came out May 25 (eh sa 26 na ang canvassing of COCs). I’m no scientist nor mathematician but as far as i am concerned D. Yap predicted leni will continue to rise and overtake BBM at a certain point. AND IT DID HAPPEN. They have been threatened and bashed in the social media since.
Reina Reyes’ post for call for responsible data science in national discourse, which was signed by 104 scientists is a place where professionals continued to call names and bash Mr.Contreras….and us Filipinos who question frauds committed/being committed by Comelec to wit:
Miyako Izabel
Miyako Izabel The problem here is that those bogus “mathematicians” do not want to be peer-reviewed. Diyan pa lang magtaka ka na.
Like · 8 hrs
Miyako Izabel
Miyako Izabel bakit nahihiya ba sa kakulangan ng dunong?
Like · 8 hrs
Arthur Jimenez Tariman
Arthur Jimenez Tariman Let us drown and suppress idiotism and ignorance in this country as they are our worst enemies — not crime, drug, corruption, insurgency, terrorism, etc.
Poverty — the root cause of crime, drug, corruption, insurgency and terrorism — is a mere product of ignorance and incompetence.
Like · 6 · 9 hrs · Edited
Jun de Lira
Jun de Lira Mr. Arthur huwag po sanang masyado mataas mag salita ….
Like · 1 · 8 hrs
Miyako Izabel
Miyako Izabel it is true that idiots are dominating the public discourse. what are you talking about?
Like · 2 · 8 hrs
Miyako Izabel
Miyako Izabel Mocha uson talks about the Philippine economy and she has millions of followers. Isn’t that a proof? walang ganyang following si Prof. Monsod na tunay na ekonomista.
Like · 9 · 8 hrs
Insinuations that the two were irresponsible, and that the public was gullible (if not engot) to swallow what the two said….. that pro-BBM, and even those who are just after the truth are being labeled as idiots and other hard to swallow insults. It hurts.
TANGGAP KO NA. TANGGAP KO NA NA HABAANG ANDIYAN PA SI NOYNOY AQUINO GAGAWIN NIYA ANG LAHAT PARA HINDI MA-PROCLAIM SI FERDINAND MARCOS JR AS VICE PRESIDENT. He may succeed. He may not. If he does, the Philippines would have lost one great Statesman. The one silver lining is that Bongbong can run for president in 2022 sans the Yellow party.
Congratulations again pNOy, for your unquenchable quest for revenge against the Marcoses you just held hostage democracy in election and caused further divisiveness.
I believe Yap did not predict that Leni was going to lead. In his analysis, he was already using the aggregated data from the Comelec server, where BBM led in the first period but got overtaken by Leni in the latter period, to conclude that there was fraud based on the patterns he saw.
Many data scientists (including a professor from UP Diliman School of Statistics) questioned his methodology, since the pattern he saw is not conclusive. Meaning, you really cannot know if there was fraud or not, given the limited data that Yap had. Also, one of the assumption of Yap’s tests is the randomness of data, which was unfortunately not satisfied. In Statistics, once an assumption is not met, any result from the tests is already questionable and biased. Kaya nga, the pattern does not equate to fraud or non-fraud. It’s incomplete. Teknikal, pero ganito lang naman kasimple yun. Your method should be correct to say that your analysis is right.
Recently, Yap has been silent on this issue (not on the electoral fraud, but on his statistical analysis). Probably meditating on the mess he created as an academic of Statistics. I can understand Contreras on the other hand, as he is not a statistician. He can use any data and graphs to suit his political interests. Mas affected dito si Yap since yung bitbit ni Contreras para sabihing may dayaan ay yung statistical analysis niya, which has already been debunked.
Anyway, I stand with you on the issue of fraud, kung meron man (hahayaan ko na yung mga IT experts dito). We should respect the voice of the Filipino people.
The greatest threat to the constitutional right to vote is voter fraud.
This is why the academe in this country does not progress. It’s full of emotional partisan shit. Believe me, Yap and contreras would have made the same argument had the roles of Leni and and BBM were reversed.
That’s speculation but of course we’re all free to speculate. But common, give these two at least the benefit of the doubt. Takes tremendous cojones to stake your name, reputation and credentials to go against popular sentiment in this country.
If you have been peer reviewed by at least 100 academics telling you that your report is skewed or your analysis is wrong, any self respecting academic would reflect and verify his data or analysis. Hindi magfile ng libel case. Eexpose expose ka ng alleged expose, tapos pag napeer review na contrary sa claims mo, siraan ng pagkatao agad sigaw mo. Hindi kabawasan ng pagkatao ang pagamin na baka may Mali talaga sa analysis. And duh the credentials of those who peer reviewed their analysis naman are equally competent if not more competent (think Ivy League). So there.
What “peer review” are you talking about? You don’t file libel charges because of criticism of your work. No self-respecting lawyer or person with an IQ of over 15 will do that. Look up the term “libel” and come back with more lucid arguments next time.
Here, say that on the man’s page himself to see if you have the balls for it: https://www.facebook.com/tonton.contreras/posts/10205407876790540?pnref=story
You yellowtards are all the same. All yapping with no balls to show for.
Personal attacks on Yap and Contreras isn’t right. But, I agree with Math 17 on the analysis Yap made. It was debunked purely on a technical level. The patterns he saw were incomplete to say that there was fraud, or the election was clean. Yap made the statistical analysis, while Contreras provided the political insights for it. Yap should be the one to give in to the call for responsible use of data and statistics, so Contreras can stop sharing Yaps’ poor analysis to his followers.
Whoever said both people actual said “there was an actual fraud” to begin with? Their findings merely illustrated the possibility of one and not dead set on saying there was actually one. Get your facts straight. Those findings, coupled with the very questionable breach of security protocols by SMARTMATIC and the COMELEC’s cavalier attitude towards it is, frankly, a no-brainer. You can parade all your credentials in the air for all I care. At this point, Yap and COntreras’s findings hardly matter anymore. It doesn’t take a genius to conclude something is not right with the way COMELEC is handling the situation. I’m sure if BBM and Leni’s situation were reversed you yellows would be the first to cry foul about it.
Hi, Max Cady. If one includes science in his/her allegations, he/she must prove it with science. Don’t justify it with the activities of Comelec and Smartmatic.
I think the issue here is not about the alleged fraud and the suspicious activity of the Comelec, it’s about the analysis made by Yap and Contreras. Even if there’s actual fraud, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the statistical analysis of Yap is correct.
I agree that the yellows would negatively react if the situation was reversed. And if that happened, since Yap is Pro-Marcos, his poor statistical analysis wouldn’t be made, and this stat-war would never take place.
Math 17 1.0 … but, but Mr. Contreras was okay with the manifesto of the #Theyellow104. What was not okay were the libelous words: insinuations about nagmamagaling, walang alam, matandang laos na bakla, poor excuse of an academician, etc. I read the thread in Reina Reyes’ post, and the comments from other professionals just made me so, so sad and angry. PROFESSIONALS THEY ARE. Prolly ISKO ng bayan some of them? They insinuated bobo those fanbases ni Sir Contreras. Guess who swallowed #RP69fanfic with gusto? University students were fans of this. What universities? Aba eh…..
I believe Contreras didn’t give in to the manifesto. He still questions it. Hence the bashing, which is also not right. I still think though that it’s up to Yap to say something about his poor statistical analysis, which is used by Contreras to prove his insights. Yet Yap is being silent, most likely wondering what mess he has gotten into as an academic.
I can understand the frustration that these academics have over Yap and Contreras, as a former academic myself. Perhaps their comments are a bit harsh. But this is the language used by many academics all the time, especially those whose training is from abroad. They are protected by the Constitution to express their opinions on a public matter. These academics are used to living in places where people, and public figures especially, have much thicker skins.
This is the post by Prof. Michael Purugganan — Dean at the prestigious New York University. Michael Purugganan: This is great! A pity some academics seem to cling to what is a clearly flawed analysis of the data – they are, indeed, sorry excuses for the academic profession. I am glad that the scientific/data community has come out with a clear statement of principles on responsible data analysis in the public discourse, and a clear stand against perpetuating flawed analyses.
The good professor also expresses the same opinion as Vega: that Yap and Contreras are sorry excuses for the academic profession.
So I think it’s a cultural difference.
As a DuCay supporter, I couldn’t care less who wins the VP race now. But it is unfortunate that some is getting sued by merely expressing negative opinions of a public matter and the persons involved in it. I would have thought that the Philippines has evolved past this by now.