SC ruling on poll automation expected

Will the country’s first computerized elections finally push through or be stopped by the Supreme Court?

Various sectors are awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision on several petitions seeking to stop the Commission on Elections (Comelec) from implementing the poll automation project due to alleged irregularities in the bidding won by the Mega Pacific Consortium (MPC).

The high court’s staff said there have been a number of inquiries about the status of the case and when the tribunal would rule on it.

The Supreme Court justices will hold an en banc session next week and the automated elections is one of the issues they are expected to resolve.

Sources said the decision was anticipated this week due to the urgent and crucial need to resolve the issues surrounding the poll automation, which will have implications on the May 10 elections.

The sources said there were hitches that still needed to be sorted out, so the Supreme Court decision did not come out.

The Information Technology Foundation of the Philippines (ITFP) said in its petition before the court that the Comelec should be restrained from using the automated counting machines (ACMs) unless it conducts another bidding.

The ITFP said the MPC, which won the contract to supply over 2,000 ACMs worth P1.3 billion, failed to comply with the standards of the technical requirements as stipulated in the terms of reference.

The petitioner also said the MPC violated the rules on bids and awards of government contracts.

The MPC, on the other hand, asked the high court to put an end to the issue regarding the reliability and accuracy of its ACMs, saying these machines have already passed the tests conducted by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

The MPC said the performance tests on the ACMs for vote counting accuracy, hardware reliability and other related features were conducted in accordance with the procedure outlines in the Technical Evaluator’s Manual Acceptance Testing of ACM, as approved by the Technical Ad Hoc Committee on Aug. 18, 2003.

Besides the ITFP, several individuals also asked the high tribunal to stop the automation of the counting and canvassing of votes in the national elections.

The individual petitioners also asked that the bidding of the poll automation contract be declared null and void and that a re-bidding process be conducted.

Respondents in the petition are Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr., Comelec bidding and award committee head Eduardo Mejos and members Gideon de Guzman, Jose Balbuena, Lamberto Llamas and Bartolome Sinocruz, along with MPC officials.

ITFP president Fred Torres said the organization, composed of 20 industry associations, were taking legal action because the Comelec and its officials violated the commission’s own rules in bidding out the contract to supply the ACMs.

The individuals who have signed the petition are Corazon Akol, Miguel Uy, Eduardo Lopez, Augusto Lagman, Rex Drilon, Miguel Hilado, Ley Salcedo and Manuel Alcuaz Jr.

In December last year, the Supreme Court directed the Comelec to submit a signed certification from the DOST attesting to the number of ACMs tested and found to be either in good condition or defective and whether the reprogrammed software had been examined and found to have complied with the requirements of the law.

The court also required the poll body to file information on the number of ACMs delivered and the total payment made to the winning bidder.

Problems

Meanwhile, the full implementation of the automated elections in May may result in a constitutional crisis, two experts on automated elections and election law said.

In a press conference at the Senate, Philippine Computer Society president Gus Lagman and lawyer and election law expert Sixto Brillantes said the Comelec is ill-prepared to shift from the manual to automated counting of votes.

Lagman helped former Comelec Chairman Christian Monsod plan the implementation of the automated poll system.

Lagman and Brillantes are recommending that President Arroyo veto the full implementation of election automation in May.

Lagman said the Comelec has only 120 days left to complete the necessary public information campaign for the automated polls and the completion of all equipment needed.

"We have been advocating for automated counting of votes during the time of (former) Comelec Chairman Christian Monsod," Lagman said. However, "given the lack of time for (the) information campaign and the proper implementation of the automation, this Comelec (under Abalos) is ill-prepared for the implementation of the automated counting of votes," he added.

"We are talking here of 40 million voters nationwide," he said. "The software, according to the Comelec, has not been completed yet and they said that it will be made available in the latter part of January."

The software, Lagman said, "should have been prepared months ago. It’s scary. There’s still time to shift to manual counting."

Brillantes said the Comelec has "not even started, at this time, to come up with instructions to Comelec personnel and to the people on how to deal with the automation of elections. They have not given instructions to election officers."

"The mock elections conducted by the Comelec only justified the fact that they are not sure if the (ACMs) will work," he added. – With Jose Rodel Clapano, Paolo Romero