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By Efren L. Danao, Senior Reporter
The Commission on Elections (Comelec), bowing to
pressure from the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on
Automated Election System, made a complete about-face and assured
that the August 11 elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim
Mindanao (ARMM) would be automated as required by law.
The Comelec on Thursday reversed its earlier
decision against automation of the polls in the autonomous region
after lawmakers threatened to withdraw the P867-million budget for
automation. The congressmen also warned that they would pass a joint
resolution so the poll body could fast-track the bidding process as
exception to the Procurement Act.
Comelec Chairman Jose Melo assured the oversight
committee jointly headed by Sen. Richard Gordon and Makati City Rep.
Teodoro Locsin Jr. that the poll agency would automate the ARMM
elections and that it would conduct a rebidding for such automation
next week.
Gordon said this would mark the first time that
an electoral exercise would be automated in accordance with the law
passed in 1997. He noted that the Comelec had failed to automate the
2004 and 2007 general elections and the 2007 barangay [village]
elections despite its assurances to do so.
The Comelec earlier declared a failure of
bidding for the ARMM elections because of alleged failure of bidders
to comply with technical requirements. The advisory council on
automation made up of technical people had urged the poll body to
reconsider and maintained that “substantial” compliance with
technical requirements should suffice.
Gordon and Locsin rejected the call of Melo to
postpone the ARMM elections so that the Comelec could have the time
to pilot the technology on automated elections in a real election
instead of a mock one. They said Congress would not agree to a new
postponement of the elections and insisted that the Comelec should
automate the ARMM polls on August 11.
Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, chairman of the Senate
Committee on Finance, increased the pressure on the Comelec by
saying that he would move that the P867-million budget for ARMM poll
automation be transferred and spent on food, roads, bridges, and
school buildings if the poll agency fails to modernize the regional
elections.
“If you don’t use it, you lose it,” added
Locsin, referring to the Comelec budget.
Enrile and Sen. Edgardo Angara allayed fears of
Melo, a former appellate court associate justice, that time is
running out on him. They said they would pass a joint resolution so
that Comelec could hasten the bidding process as an exception to the
Procurement Act.
A joint resolution has the force and effect of
law once passed by both the House and the Senate. Angara, the
principal author of the Procurement Act, stressed that the exception
would involve only the ARMM election automation.
Melo said the eight bidders who participated in
the earlier bidding and new ones can participate in the next
bidding, which will be province by province, not for the entire
autonomous region.
Angara and Enrile had proposed that to make the
exercise easier, automation should be limited only to the provinces
of Maguindanao, Sharif Kabunsuan, and Lanao del Sur, which are
contiguous, and the nearby island-province of Basilan. They also
pushed that one technology need not be used in all four provinces.
Tawi-Tawi and Sulu, the remaining ARMM
provinces, will hold manual elections again.
Gordon and Angara said the Comelec can call for
different technologies in automation, as they cited the United
States whose states are not limited to one form of technology.
Gordon said without automation, the results of
elections would always be questioned. He noted that there had been
no closures in Philippine elections, whether local or national, with
losers claiming to have been cheated because of the way the polls
were conducted.
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