Comelec chief ‘worries’ over looming set back in 2010 poll automation

MANILA, Philippines – A setback in next year’s poll automation loomed after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Special Bids and Awards Committee (SBAC) further trimmed down to one the seven consortiums bidding to handle the automation of next year's election. While the poll body was hands off in choosing the company, Comelec Chairman Jose Melo could not help but express fears that the much-anticipated automation would be derailed. "Si [British boxer Ricky] Hatton umabot maski second round. Ito first round pa lang, first second, knocked out na, eh. We will see kaya nga I'm a little worried about it," Melo said comparing the bidding to the match between Manny Pacquiao and the British boxer. [Hatton lasted up to two rounds but the companies were already knocked out only on the first round.] The bidding of consortiums competing to provide automation machines for the upcoming national polls kicked off Monday, with seven groups joining namely: • Avante International, Inc. (USA); • Indra Sistemas S.A (Spain); • Total Information Management Co. of Philippines and Smartmatic of the Netherlands; • AMA Group of Companies of the Philippines and Election System and Software of USA; • Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (Israel); • Amalgated Metro Philippines and Syrex Inc., both of Philippines and Anishin Inc. of Taiwan; • Sequoia Voting Systems of United States On the same day, Avant was disqualified for failure to submit complete copies of key documents needed in the bidding. The next day, Tuesday, consortium of Indra Sistemas and Sequoia Voting Systems of United States were dropped from the bidding for failing to submit an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certificate and for failure to produce an export license, respectively. Today, Wednesday, the number further plummeted to one after four more companies were disqualified making Gilat Satellite the company being considered. Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer said the disqualifications was yet be translated to failure of biddings since the companies could still appeal the result and submit necessary documents for remedy. He assured that all means would be exhausted to ensure that the mode of balloting would be modernized come 2010. However, if it would not work out, the public would have to use the alleged fraud-tainted manual elections, he said. “We're going to exert all effort na hindi mag-failure of bidding. You know, if all things are resulted to na still we fail, well god forbids we will have to go back to manual," he said adding in jest that he would retire if the automation would be derailed. - GMANews.TV