No link to First Family, poll automation firms say

MANILA, Philippines – Officials of the consortium that bagged the multi-billion-peso poll automation contract assured the Senate yesterday that they were not in any way linked to the First Family or to any politician.

Joint venture Smartmatic International Corp. and Total Information Management Corp. (TIM) gave the assurance after Sen. Richard Gordon asked them about their possible relations with the “powers that be.”

“The only time in my life that I ever met the President and the First Gentleman was in 1994 when she was a senator and she led the ribbon cutting of a business recovery center. But I never talked to them in my life,” TIM president Jose Marie Antuñez told the Senate Blue Ribbon committee chaired by Gordon.

Antuñez also said he has no family member or relatives in politics. He also stressed he is not related to the Aboitizes, who got the sub-contract for the delivery of the automation machines through the Aboitiz-owned 2GO.

But Antuñez said he would play golf with some politician-friends like “Congressmen Suarez and Miraflores,” apparently referring to congressmen Danilo Suarez of Quezon and Florencio Miraflores of Aklan.

Smartmatic chief financial officer Armando Yanes gave the same assurance.

Smartmatic sales director Cesar Flores, for his part, clarified that they did have lunch meetings with Gordon, congressmen Teodoro Locsin Jr. of Makati City and Simeon Kintanar of Cebu and other stakeholders but only to present their product.

At the same hearing, Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Jose Melo announced that the signing of the contract with Smartmatic-TIM will push through on Friday after the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of the articles of incorporation of the two companies.

Despite the joint venture’s assurances, TIM and Smartmatic officials still received a dressing down from senators.

Officials of the two firms said they had made the necessary adjustments and that there were no more issues on the table. They stressed they did not intend to hold the nation hostage and that after realizing the implications of their misunderstanding, they decided to iron out their differences and go back to their original agreement.

At first, Antuñez said they did not intend to pull out from the project and was only telling Melo about their problems with Smartmatic.

But he was quickly rebuffed by Melo, who pointed out that it was the TIM president himself who had muttered, “We have lost trust and confidence in our partners, we are withdrawing.”

Melo said he told Antuñez to fix their problems on their own. Melo said he even called Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera to “prosecute” them for breach of contract.

Antuñez said they only wanted Melo to mediate but that the issue was “blown out of proportion.”

Irresponsible

Sen. Pia Cayetano told Antuñez it was very “irresponsible” of them to leave everyone in panic with their misunderstanding and that safeguards must be in place to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Melo said he did not want to play judge in the issue, adding it was fortunate that they agreed to stay together.

Melo suggested that Comelec be allowed to take the place of TIM if the latter gets involved in another dispute with Smartmatic.

Melo said such an arrangement is possible if Comelec gets legal backing like what it did for the automation of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao polls in 2008.

“We will support you,” Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile told Melo.

Melo said the two companies had disagreements over the disbursement of funds. When asked how they resolved the differences, Flores said they simply turned to the provisions of the original joint venture agreement (JVA).

Token partner

Sen. Francis Escudero pointed out it was not fair to assume that only TIM would be at fault in case new problems arise and that Comelec may simply take the role of local partner of Smartmatic.

Antuñez admitted that 90 percent of the work would be done by TIM’s foreign partner, even as the articles of incorporation and the JVA state that it has 60 percent control of the joint venture.

Gordon described the arrangement as “tokenism.”

Escudero, co-chairman of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on the Automated Election System, pointed out this must be made clear in the JVA rather than fool the public that it was a 60-40 agreement, only to satisfy a requirement that the joint venture should be controlled by a Filipino firm.

“Let’s call a spade a spade,” Escudero said.

Enrile and the other senators said there would be no violation if it would not be a 60-40 joint venture because the law did not actually require it and that it is stipulated only in the implementing rules and regulations on procurement.

Smartmatic officials reiterated their system was reliable and that 90 percent of the votes would already be counted within six hours after the voting. They said the machines could not be hacked and that the results could not be easily altered.

Gordon and Enrile also denied text messages circulating that they were defending Smartmatic, saying they only wanted to make sure that poll automation would push through without hitches because the country’s democracy would be at stake.

New hurdle

Melo said the only hurdle so far for poll automation is a threat from Cebu Rep. Pablo Garcia to question the project before the Supreme Court on the ground that Comelec did not conduct any pertinent testing in 2007.

But Melo said the law on poll automation was passed in early 2007 and that there was no more time to prepare.

But he said the ARMM polls were automated in 2008 and that alone represented a “substantial compliance” with the law.

Comelec also said it would make sure that Smartmatic and TIM would be at the losing end in case they quarrel again.

Poll officials said they plan to insert some safety nets in the automation contract due for signing on Friday.

Melo said the Comelec primarily wants to withhold precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines and part of the P7.2-billion lease contract fee in case Smartmatic and TIM have another falling out.

“We can go after them if anything goes wrong. We’ll not pay some 30 percent of the P4-billion fee,” he claimed. Of the P7.2-billion bid offer of Smartmatic and TIM, some P4 billion is for the PCOS machines.

The two firms have jointly won the bid for the supply of 82,200 PCOS machines. The equipment will be installed at poll precincts next year.

Melo said they are seriously looking at blacklisting the two companies from future Comelec projects in case of another foul up.

He said he is confident the two firms will not let their reputation get tarnished.

“They will have a bad reputation. I think everything will be fine, we are hopeful,” he added. – With Sheila Crisostomo