Comelec to file ACM case motion

The Commission on Elections will ask the Office of the Ombudsman to reconsider its recommendation to impeach Comelec Commissioner Resurreccion Borra over the scrapped deal with the private consortium MegaPacific eSolutions Inc. for a P1.2-billion poll automation project.

Comelec spokesman James Arthur Jimenez said the entire poll body, in a closed-door session yesterday, decided to file the motion 10 days after receipt of the copy of the Ombudsman’s findings on the controversy.

"The Comelec en banc decided to file the motion for reconsideration based on the belief that there were no irregularities in the (poll automation) project," he said in Filipino.

Jimenez said the Comelec’s legal department is now preparing the motion, which would tackle not only Borra’s case but that of five other directors included in the Ombudsman’s recommendations.

Meanwhile, MegaPacific eSolutions Inc. (MPEI) expressed "extreme disappointment and dismay" over the Ombudsman’s resolution which found probable cause against the Comelec for supposedly violating the anti-graft law.

MPEI legal counsel and official spokesman Alfredo Lazaro Jr. said that members of the board of directors of MPEI, while disheartened, have no option but to face the accusations against them in order to clear their names.

In a statement, Lazaro said MPEI won the bid to supply the Comelec with automated counting machines three years ago fair and square.

"We won it fair and square and we won it clean," he said, adding that it appears that the Office of the Ombudsman released the decision simply to comply with the deadline imposed by the Supreme Court without studying the intricacies of the case.

"To some extent, the primary quest of the Ombudsman to render justice was compromised for expediency," he said.

Lazaro explained that MPEI merely responded to the bidding invitation issued by the government through the Comelec.

"Accordingly, MPEI merely participated as a regular bidder and submitted a bid proposal, to what it viewed was commercially viable but compliant with the bidding rules and regulations issued by Comelec," he said.

It was the Comelec, he stressed, that was found to be negligent.

"Why is the government punishing us? It was the Comelec that had been found negligent," he said.

According to Lazaro MPEI would pursue the damage suit it filed against the government before the Makati City regional trial court. Premised on the fact that the MPEI submitted a qualifying bid most advantageous to the government, the suit will be based on the company’s belief that the bid cannot be viewed as tainted with graft nor make its directors answerable for the crime.

It is not MPEI’s fault that government opted not to use the machines, Lazaro stressed.

In a statement, the MPEI said its directors take exception to the insinuation that the machines were defective.

"Contrary to the claims of the company’s critics, the machines were all certified to be 100 percent accurate by no less than the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). The machines were all tested in the DOST office and witnessed by the opposing bidder, IT consultants and officials of the Bidding and Awards Committee," it said.

As this developed, a senior prelate yesterday called on Comelec officials to voluntarily resign to restore the credibility of the poll body.

Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz said all three Comelec Commissioners who remain in office — Chairman Benjamin Abalos, Resurreccion Borra and Florentino Tuason — should resign "out of delicadeza."

In its findings released Friday, the Ombudsman also recommended the filing of graft charges against Borra, who lamented that he was "singled out" in the Ombudsman’s recommendation since his fellow commissioners also had the same role in the awarding of contract to MPEI.

Cruz, however, said he expects the Ombudsman to come up with similar recommendations for other Comelec commissioners.

"It’s impossible that there is only one person who can be held responsible for a billion-peso deal," he said. — With Edu Punay