Comelec victimizing even P-Noy cousin

Whether he’ll reinstate his friend PNP chief Alan Purisima after six months suspension is P-Noy’s call. For now he must impose the Ombudsman’s forced leave and name a stand-in. Criminality rose after he positioned Purisima in Dec. 2012. It can only get worse without someone at the helm of the disoriented PNP.

P-Noy is empowered to place any star ranker, that is, senior or chief superintendent, director, or deputy director general. If by seniority, next in line are DDGs Leonardo Espina, who will retire in five months, or Marcelo Garbo, in 15 months. As one-time regional commanders both have sterling records in busting crime syndicates.

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A startling info surfaced at last week’s Comelec bidding for voting machines in 2016. It came from the very submissions of Smartmatic-Total Information Management. The consortium of the Venezuelan Smartmatic and Filipino TIM is gunning for the P7-billion contracts to supply 43,000 new precinct count optical scanners (PCOS) and refurbish 86,000 old ones. But there’s the catch: Smartmatic-TIM is unauthorized to deal with the government.

The 2009 SEC registration presented by Smartmatic-TIM is clear. It states that the two firms combined to supply voting machines only for the 2010 elections. That’s when the consortium leased 74,000 PCOS units to the Comelec for P7.2 billion. The SEC certificate bans it from engaging in business other than the one applied for and granted.

The implication is grave: Smartmatic-TIM may not bid or negotiate for any Comelec contract for 2016. When a competitor pointed this up, Smartmatic-TIM reps admitted the limitation. They said they’re applying for update of the corporate records.

But wait a minute. Going by the SEC papers and Smartmatic-TIM admissions, the consortium also was debarred from contracting even in 2013. Yet in that election it sold to the Comelec the 74,000 leased PCOS for P1.8 billion. It also bagged billions of pesos more for 12,000 new units, accessories and warehousing; tech manning, and result transmission.

The consortium broke corporation laws by contracting with the Comelec in 2013. It continues to beak the law by its ghostly participation in the ongoing bidding for 2015. For those acts alone the Comelec bid and awards committee should disqualify it.

The opposite happened, however. After the critical info on Smartmatic-TIM’s legal inexistence came up, the BAC told it and the competitors to file pleadings. The next day the ghost consortium joined in the product demos.

What magic is Smartmatic-TIM using to make the Comelec abet the law breaking? The other week chairman Sixto Brillantes told the press that the agency’s legal division recommended public bidding for the refurbishing of the 86,000 old PCOS units. Just the same, he said he and the commissioners directly will negotiate with Smartmatic-TIM.

That’s just the latest of Brillantes’ favoring of Smartmatic-TIM. In 2012 he forcibly bought the 74,000 old machines because supposedly bound by an option to purchase in the 2009 lease contract. This was against the ruling of the Government Procurement Policy Board that the option had expired when left unexercised by the Comelec as of yearend 2010.

In 2012 too Smartmatic admitted to not owning and developing the PCOS software, contrary to the Automated Election Act of 2008. The real owner-developer turned out to be Dominion Corp. Canada. Still Brillantes bought 86,000 old and new units from Smartmatic.

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Trouble is stirring anew at P-Noy’s hometown of Paniqui, Tarlac – due to Comelec machination. It is letting a 2013 mayoralty loser take over from P-Noy’s cousin Miguel Cojuangco Rivilla. Yet its basis is legally flawed and contradicts its past actions. To recount:

The loser twice had asked the Tarlac regional trial court for a recount of the 2013 results. Both times the judges refused, for the period for poll protests had long lapsed. From the far Cordilleras was brought in a third judge, who obliged the loser. The consequent recount painted the PCOS to have erred 87 percent. It was contrary to Brillantes’ repeated line that the PCOS is 99.995-percent accurate, and castigation of judges who say otherwise. This time around he oddly was mum, as the third judge authorized the loser to take over the mayoralty.

Meanwhile, the loser’s wife charged Rivilla with flimsy raps before the Tarlac provincial board. Dominated by the province’s ruling party, the board suspended Rivilla for one month, starting Nov. 7. This meant that the vice mayor should take over in the interim, but it was the loser, aided by the provincial police, who did.

As supporters of Rivilla and the loser prepared to clash at the municipio, the Comelec first division finally acted. Division head Lucenito Tagle ruled: Rivilla was duly elected; the recount was void;, the loser must leave.

The loser defied the order until after gunshots were fired, and the Dept. of Interior and Local Governments stepped in the other week. He moved for Comelec reconsideration. In such action, the Comelec usually would let its original ruling stand, pending review. Oddly in this case, Tagle quoted a supposed Comelec en banc ruling that it is the judge’s anti-PCOS, pro-loser order that will prevail in the meantime.

Today, with suspension over, Rivilla is to retake the mayoralty. The loser has announced to do the same, based on Tagle’s flip-flop. There is yet no proof that the Comelec en banc had indeed taken up the case.