Photokina to SC: Reverse ruling on voters’ ID system

It was messy dealing, not a bad contract.

Photokina Marketing Corp. asked the Supreme Court yesterday to reverse its ruling nullifying the company’s multibillion-peso contract to computerize the country’s election system.

In a 31-page motion for reconsideration, lawyers for Photokina Ramon Esguerra and Rommel Cuison said the SC should set aside its Sept. 18 ruling, since it was the negligence of former Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Alfredo Benipayo that made hash out of the planned Voters’ Registration Identification System (VRIS).

The SC questioned the Comelec’s bidding out the contract when it had no available funds at the time and overturned the ruling of Quezon City Judge Ma. Luisa Quijano Padilla compelling the Comelec to enter into the next phase of the computerization contract with Photokina.

Photokina said Benipayo should be held liable for refusing to include the consideration and approval of the VRIS contract in the Comelec’s agenda.

The company underscored the need for the SC to immediately allow it and the Comelec to commence negotiations for the terms of the VRIS for the sake of modernized elections in 2004.

"With the 2004 elections just around the corner, the consideration of the decision will not only vindicate Photokina in this action, but will likewise pave the way for the modernization of our country’s electoral process towards clean, honest and orderly elections," the motion said.

"Our countrymen should not be deprived of this right a minute longer," it said.

The lawyers maintained Benipayo was not only guilty of negligence by inaction, but said the records show there was a deliberate attempt by him to defy the Comelec resolution on the VRIS implementation.

The firm claimed that even Comelec Commissioner Resurreccion Borra testified that the budget request submitted by Benipayo did not include any provision for the VRIS project. a violation, they said, of his duty under the Comelec resolutions and the Voters’ Registration Act of 1996.

Photokina is a consortium that has for partners American firms IBM, Unisys and Polaroid, and French defense giant Sagem.

Photokina vice president Eric Noora said in a statement that "the fate of the 2004 national and presidential elections is now in the hands of the Supreme Court. How they decide on our motion will determine whether or not we will have the opportunity to hold clean and honest elections in 2004." — Aurea Calica