Comelec to replace VRIS

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) plans to use its P1.9-billion savings for a modernization program drawn up by Chairman Alfredo Benipayo.

Meanwhile, the election watchdog National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) is spearheading a campaign to support the poll body’s efforts to implement the automation program as mandated by Republic Act 8436, also known as the Election Automation Law of 1997,

Comelec Commissioner Resurreccion Borra said the agency has a total savings of P1.9 billion from its budgets over the past years which may be tapped as additional funds for the modernization program. Benipayo has asked for the release of P3.4 billion by the budget department to bankroll the modernization program which replaces the Voter’s Registration and Identification System (VRIS) initiated by the previous leadership of the commission.

Benipayo’s request was contained in the Comelec’s proposed P3.4-billion budget for fiscal year 2001, down by P5.1 billion from the original P8.5 billion submitted to the budget department during the watch of former Chairwoman Harriet Demetriou.

The P8.5 billion was supposedly meant to finance implementation of the VRIS and other components of the modernization program such as the automated council of results systems and precinct mapping.

When Benipayo took over the reins of the Comelec, he created a committee to come out with a new modernization plan at the reduced cost of P3.4 billion.

Under his plan, the VRIS and other components of the modernization program were scrapped even as a notice of award of the contract had been issued to a private consortium.

Commissioner Luzviminda Tancangco objected to the submission of the reduced budget saying it was not ratified by the commission en banc.

She said she, along with Commissioners Rufino Javier, Ralph Lantion and Mehol Sadain, was surprised to learn about the chairman’s letter to Budget Secretary Emilia Boncodin.

She noted that Benipayo appeared to have the habit of doing things alone for the commission.

Borra argued, however, that submission of the proposed budget for the agency is a prerogative of the chairman. "As chief executive officer, he is required by the Administrative Code to submit the budget to the en banc and to make a recommendation to the Department of Budget and Management for purposes of budgetary estimate for the commission for the fiscal year that will be approved by both the House (of Representatives) and the Senate," Borra said.

Helping push the implementation of RA 8436 were the Makati Business Club led by its executive director and Namfrel secretary general Guillermo Luz, the Bishop-Businessmen’s Conference, the Philippine Computer Society and the Information Technology Foundation of the Philippines.

"We commit to make ourselves available, our time, our talents and our skills, in the pursuit of this challenge and noble goal to enhance the capability of Philippine elections by way of automating the counting and canvassing process," the organizations stated in a joint statement.

Copies of a paper entitled "Private Sector Manifesto; Automating the 2004 Presidential Elections: The Most Significant Electoral Reform for the Philippines in this Millennium" were distributed by the groups.

The Comelec decided to revert to the manual system of voting and counting for the May 14 congressional and local elections.

As envisioned by RA 8436, the tabulation, preparation of election returns, and canvassing of votes would be fully automated, from the local up to the national levels.

Namfrel chairman Jose Concepcion noted that the manual system applied in the recent polls triggered a lot of errors and discrepancies in the canvassing.

He said the confusion eroded the credibility of the electoral exercise, decreased voters’ confidence in the in the results of the balloting and weakened the accountability of election officials.

Concepcion claimed that some members of the Boards of Election Inspectors and the Boards of Canvassers even appeared to have intentionally manipulated the election results.