Comelec exec hits direct contract with Smartmatic

MANILA, Philippines - Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Luie Guia believes the refurbishing contract for some 80,000 precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines should be subjected to public bidding to ensure transparency.

In his four-page dissenting opinion, Guia said a direct contract with Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) Corp. lacks transparency, so the project should have been bidded out.

“Transparency is key to gaining public trust and confidence in elections. Public bidding affords the public the opportunity to observe the procurement phase of election preparation,” he said.

Guia added that “a credible procurement procedure brings more trust and confidence in the electoral process itself, which in turn, results to better public acceptance of election results.”

Voting 5-2 last Dec. 23, the Comelec had decided to tap Smartmatic-TIM to perform diagnostic services on the PCOS machines for P300 million since it was Smartmatic that manufactured the units.

Guia, however, believes that the P300-million contract is too substantial an amount to make readily acceptable the representations of Smartmatic-TIM and abandon the option of public bidding.

Aside from Guia, Commissioner Arthur Lim also dissented.

The poll body had cited the timeline for the 2016 polls as the primary reason in giving the project to Smartmatic-TIM, but Guia was of the opinion that it should not be the priority.

“In elections, processes are as important as the results. Open competitive bidding provides transparency in the procurement process,” he maintained.

He said while timeline is crucial, especially when preparing for an election with fixed date, “equally important is public trust and the credibility of the electoral process.”

For Guia, the timeline is “just planning tools intended to assist in ensuring that deadlines of activities in a project are met.” This can be changed to attain “substantive goals.”

“In determining whether the conditions for direct contracting were met, the majority placed great weight on the representations of Smartmatic-TIM in the documents it recently furnished to the commission. Having been sourced solely from Smartmatic-TIM, the representations given are, at best, self-serving,” he added.