Comelec not ready for poll automation - Chiz

CEBU, Philippines - Opposition senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero continues to oppose the holding of fully automated polls next year as he branded the Commission on Election as “ill-prepared” to hold such a kind of election.

“I don’t think we are ready for it. The Comelec is not even ready. I am afraid that there will be a failure of election,” Escudero said.

In case there is a failure of elections next year Escudero said that he has filed a joint resolution that five days before June 30, both Houses should convene for the purposes of electing a new senate president whose term will end in 2013 to serve as a caretaker president for 90 days unless a new president of the country is elected.

Escudero said that if there will be a failure of elections, his remedy is legal and not through “people power”.

Escudero pointed out that even the US elections is not fully automated as only 87 percent of their polls are automated.

“And yet the Philippines will fully automate from Aparri to Jolo in just one year,” said Escudero, who was the guest speaker during the forum on Citizen-Media Participation in the Elections as part of Cebu’s 15th year celebration of Press Freedom Week.

Escudero likewise asked Comelec and the Smartmatic/TIM consortium to disclose to the public all of its activities in relation to preparations for the said elections.

He said that the automation of next year’s election is a very crucial and historical event and the Filipino people should be provided with all the information pertinent to this activity.

Escudero, who is the chairman of the joint Oversight Committee on the Automated Election System said Smartmatic/TIM should by now have completed or at least be gaining headway in its site surveys if all the country’s precincts and have a clearer picture of how it intends to conduct voting in each of the precincts. — Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon/BRP (THE FREEMAN)