Poll automation up to Comelec, Palace says

MANILA, Philippines -  Malacañang reiterated yesterday that it is up to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to decide how to implement the automated election system law for next year’s elections since it has the mandate to do this under the Constitution.

In an interview over Radyo ng Bayan, Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said the Palace would not interfere in this process in light of Comelec’s independence.

“The law is already there, the President has set the direction, the budget has been allocated. It is now up to the Comelec to implement the law. We don’t want to tell the Comelec how to implement the law,” Remonde said in Filipino.

While the Palace has repeatedly kept its distance from the issue of next year’s election automation, one of the President’s advisers gave an opinion on the matter for the sake of ensuring clean, fast and honest elections.

National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales, in a statement issued yesterday, aired his support for the open election system that was proposed by former Comelec chairman Christian Monsod as an alternative to the method chosen by the Comelec.

The Comelec has failed in its bidding of equipment for next year’s elections, prompting fears that the country could go back to the manual system, which is prone to fraud.

Gonzales argued that the Comelec could still do something to address the situation and all it has to do is be more flexible and consider the other technologies available.

By adopting the Open Election System (OES), Gonzales pointed out that the Comelec would be able to implement a cost-effective and simpler system while ensuring that fraud could be avoided at the usual stages.

Gonzales noted that the OES, a hybrid of manual and fully-automated elections, is more fit to the present readiness not only of the Comelec but more so of the country’s electorate, particularly some senior citizens who have not touched a computer.

“We are running out of time for the preparation for full automation, but we still have adequate time for OES,” he added.

With the OES, Gonzales explained that voting would still be done manually but the canvassing would be automated.

The proponents of the OES argued that the government would be able to save a significant amount of money by adapting this system since it would only have to purchase computers for the canvassing.

Monsod earlier claimed that the OES would only cost the government around P4 billion in contrast to the P11.3 billion the Comelec has been given for its choice of technology.

Meanwhile, the disqualification of the seven bidders for the automation contract of the Comelec has drawn mixed reactions from various poll watchdog groups.

They are divided over whether or not the Comelec should choose the bidder through negotiated contract or just go back to manual voting and counting in case the bidding fails.

For Philippine Consortium on Electoral Reforms (CER) executive director Ramon Casiple, a manual election is out of the question.