JDV, Indian president discuss poll modernization

Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. and other leaders of Congress are expected to discuss with visiting Indian President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam today ways in which India could assist the Philippines in modernizing its electoral system.

De Venecia said yesterday the discussion would take place before the visiting official addresses a joint session of Congress this afternoon at the Batasan complex in Quezon City.

Kalam arrived Friday on a four-day state visit, the first in 15 years by an Indian head of state.

De Venecia invited Chairman Benjamin Abalos of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and retired Chief Justice Hilario Davide, new presidential electoral adviser, to the meeting on poll modernization.

The Comelec had suffered a setback in its efforts to modernize the last presidential election in May 2004 when the Supreme Court voided its contract for the acquisition of automated counting machines worth more than P1 billion for being fraud-tainted.

Even then, De Venecia expressed confidence that the poll body, under Abalos, could modernize the elections in May 2007, which the Speaker said could be for members of parliament.

He said the country is turning to India for help because "no one has accused India of electoral fraud."

He said in talks between he and President Arroyo, President Kalam expressed willingness to support the Philippine poll modernization program.

"India has a population of more than one billion and an electorate of 670 million but is able to complete electronic voting and electronic counting in its national elections within 24 hours," he added.

He pointed out that Abalos wants negotiations with the Indian government to be conducted "at the highest levels to avoid suspicions of wrongdoing in the procurement of poll equipment."

He acknowledged Abalos’ earlier initiative in inviting a senior Indian election official, V.V. Tandon, to brief senior Comelec officials on India’s successful election system.

Among De Venecia’s colleagues expected to attend this afternoon’s meeting are Deputy Speakers Emilio Espinosa Jr., Raul del Mar, Gerry Salapuddin, and Benigno Aquino III; Majority Leader Prospero Nograles; and Minority Leader Francis Escudero.

The Speaker invited six senators: Juan Flavier, Francis Pangilinan, Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Edgardo J. Angara and Richard Gordon.

De Venecia said if new poll equipment could be procured from India for the country’s 220,000 precincts, the old computers and counting machines covered by the contract that the Supreme Court had nullified could be used in public schools.

Besides voiding the contract, the High Tribunal directed the Office of the Ombudsman to file graft charges against Comelec officials responsible for the fraud-tainted modernization project.

The court also asked the Comelec and the Office of the Solicitor General to initiate cases to collect the nearly P1 billion that the poll body had already paid to its supplier, Mega Pacific consortium.

Until now, no charges have been filed against officials of the poll body and no amount has been recovered from the supplier.