Prove charges against Comelec, lawmaker asks critics

MANILA, Philippines - The chairman of the House of Representatives committee on suffrage and electoral reform urged critics of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday to prove their charges against the poll body.

“They should substantiate their accusations. I urge these groups to exercise restraint in coming out with statements that put the Comelec in a bad light,” Capiz Rep. Fredenil Castro said.

“The Comelec safeguards our elections. If these groups attack the integrity of the Comelec without sufficient proof, they weaken the guardian of our elections, and in effect our electoral process and our democracy. I think we should not allow this thing to happen,” he said.

He lamented that interest groups and “self-styled” experts have been assailing ongoing bidding processes the Comelec has initiated in connection with preparations for the combined presidential-congressional-local elections in May 2016.

In particular, they have questioned Comelec’s plan to award a P300-million diagnostics contract to the poll body’s previous automation contractor, Smartmatic, to test whether thousands of precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines are still running.

Outgoing Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes has vowed to give the contract to Smartmatic unless stopped by the Supreme Court (SC). Since Smartmatic supplied the PCOS machines and possesses the software to test them, it is only logical that it gets the diagnostics deal, he said.

Several concerned groups have asked the SC to restrain Brillantes from proceeding with the award and to order the Comelec to blacklist Smartmatic.

Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares said the poll commission’s automation contractor “is no global leader in automated elections after all.” This he found out during last Wednesday’s hearing of the suffrage committee on 2016 election preparations, he said.

He said a Smartmatic representative, responding to his questions, told the committee that his company has 500 personnel. “I don’t know off the top of my head,” he quoted the representative as saying when asked how in many countries it was involved in automating elections.

“You have 500 employees, while Indra claims to employ 40,000,” he told the representative, referring to another bidder, Spain’s Indra Sistemas. “You don’t even have at the top of your head how many national elections you have managed.”

For his part, Rep. Antonio Tinio of party-list group Alliance of Concerned Teachers said the Comelec should not pay Smartmatic for testing PCOS machines to be used in the 2016 elections.

He said the automation contractor supplied the PCOS machines, the Comelec should negotiate that it tests them free of charge.