Abalos, JoeCon figure in Palace shouting match

The argument over whether the Commission on Elections (Comelec) should prioritize the purchase of counting or transmission machines for the 2004 elections is not yet over.

In a heated word war the other day between Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos and businessman and National Movement for Free Elections chairman Jose Concepcion, the issue resurfaced even as the Comelec and Namfrel had already forged a partnership for the automation of next year’s elections.

The STAR learned that the "shouting match" happened in the presence of President Arroyo and her Cabinet during a meeting held at Malacañang the other day.

The usually soft-spoken Abalos, however, sought to downplay the incident, saying he merely spoke at a higher tone level than usual when he felt slighted by Concepcion’s insinuations that the Comelec lacks the capability to implement the planned "inter-phasing" of the counting and transmission machines to ensure clean and honest elections with the least human intervention.

"Para kaming ginagawang tanga, doon nag-panting ang aking tenga (We were made to look like fools. That’s where I got angry)," Abalos said.

"Alam namin sa Comelec ang aming ginagawa. Kaya sabi ko sa kanila, wag kayong mag-alala (We know what we are doing here at the Comelec. So, I told them they should not worry)," he added.

Abalos bewailed Concepcion’s insistence that Comelec support Namfrel’s proposal for the government to purchase 2,000 counting machines which would cost as much as P1.8 billion.

"But we in the Comelec are the ones accountable and not them," he said. "And I told them we must take a holistic view of the entire project given the scarce resources of the government."

He explained that under the Comelec plan, the government could save on costs if the counting machines would be "inter-phased" with the transmission machines with additional gadgets that would facilitate the transfer of election results from various parts of the country to Manila and to various political party headquarters.

Abalos said that perhaps the Namfrel chief’s apprehension on the Comelec’s plan was that it would eliminate poll watchdogs like Namfrel as a Comelec accredited "Quick Count" group.

He bared that Namfrel’s application for accreditation in the 2004 elections is still pending with the Comelec. "If we have this not so cordial kind of relations, how can we be partners in this endeavor?" he asked.

Concepcion’s latest brush with Abalos came as he and his group failed in their impeachment bid in Congress against Comelec Commissioner Luzviminda Tancangco whom they also scored for her stiff objection against Namfrel’s bid to throw out the voter’s registration information system (VRIS) which was the initial project of Comelec under its modernization program.

Namfrel was one of the groups which pushed for the filing of an impeachment case versus Tancangco before the House of Representatives.

Congressmen voted 69-57 last Monday to shoot down the impeachment complaint.