'Bidding for ARMM poll materials must start soon'

MANILA, Philippines - With Congress still undecided on whether to postpone or not the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) polls, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) wants the bidding to start soon for election materials to be used in the Aug. 8 political exercise.

Ferdinand Rafanan, who chairs the poll body’s Bids and Awards Committee, said it is necessary to start the bidding early to avoid any failure of elections.

Rafanan said the bidding process for the purchase of ballot paper, secrecy folders, ballot boxes, padlocks and other election parapahernalia must start as early as May.

“We have not reached any critical dates (at this time)… but we should start bidding. It will be three months before the Aug. 8 elections – that will be May, June and July,” he said.

The bidding though will not include the automated election system (AES) to be used in August since the poll body is already inclined to reuse the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines used in the May 2010 national and local polls.

The Comelec noted that it had to declare a failure of elections in many areas nationwide in last October’s barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections due to delay in the delivery of poll materials.

The poll body that time held the bidding only more than a month before election day.

A number of congressmen and Malacañang are pushing for the postponement of the ARMM elections to 2013.

For their part, poll officials have been calling on lawmakers to decide as soon as possible on whether to postpone the regional polls or not so as to avoid a repeat of the barangay poll mess.

But as part of its early preparation, the Comelec has set the registration for the ARMM polls on March 21 to 31.

Meanwhile, poll watchdogs in the ARMM want the elections to proceed as scheduled, Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting chairperson Henrietta de Villa said.

“We did not make an extensive survey but only among our partners… so far they want it to push through,” De Villa said, quoting a report from PPCRV-ARMM chairman Fr. David Procalla.  – With Helen Flores, Paolo Romero