Poll automation deal signed, finally

MANILA, Philippines - After weeks of suspense and tense reconciliation meetings between estranged contract partners, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Friday finally sealed the deal with the winning consortium. But a recent petition filed with the Supreme Court still threatens to derail the contract. The signing of the contract will start the preparations for the historic first automation program for the Philippines’ general elections next year, and end the manual system that has been blamed for electoral fraud in past elections. Elections in the Philippines have been characterized by massive cheating, vote buying, and voter intimidation. Signing the contract were Comelec chair Jose Melo; Salvador Aque, senior vice president of TIM; Armando Yanes, Smartmatic chief finance officer; and Juan Villa, chairman of the board of the joint consortium. “This (automation) project is not like any other project, like say a construction project wherein if a petition is filed we can say, ‘Oh ipagpaliban muna natin ito [Let’s suspend this for a while] out of respect to the Court.’ But here, we cannot do that because we have to meet some timeline. We cannot postpone the elections. So we had to do that now," Melo stressed. The Comelec said that the P7.2 billion payment will be done in 13 installments - the last payment to be given after the May 2010 elections. “We are humbled and privileged to be given this opportunity to be part of this historic undertaking. So rest assured that TIM will do its best to help ensure that we have a fast, clean, and credible election come 2010," TIM’s Aque said. Smartmatic-TIM spokesman Cesar Flores said now that the deal was sealed, Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM can go “full blast" and proceed with the next phase of the poll automation project. “What comes next are meetings, meetings, and meetings. Both teams need to start interacting with each other. We need to start understanding the lines of reporting and responsibilities in the project," Flores said. Orders He said in the course of implementing the highly-anticipated automation project, Smartmatic-TIM and Comelec would be hiring over 100 people for their project management team, and a 42,000-strong technical manpower. By next week, Smartmatic-TIM would be placing orders for the components to be used in the manufacture of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines. Then in September, Taiwanese-based Jarltech will begin assembling voting machines, which are all expected to be shipped to the Philippines by the end of the year. “We plan to make 2,000 machines a day. If we really need to rush, we can try producing as many as 4,000 machines daily," Flores said. For the software to be used for the PCOS machines, Smartmatic-TIM plans to customize a technology owned by Canadian firm Dominion Voting Systems of Canada. Under the automation system, the Comelec has reduced the number of polling precincts from 250,000 in the 2007 elections to just 80,000 for the 2010 elections. Smartmatic-TIM is mandated to supply 82,500 voting machines, with 2,500 machines serving as backups. One precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machine will cover about 1,000 voters. The Comelec and the winning consortium pushed through with the contract-signing as the Supreme Court did not issue a temporary restraining order in response to a petition filed by Harry Roque and other lawyers, who alleged that the joint venture failed to conform with several requirements in the bidding. Melo, a retired Supreme Court associate justice, said the Comelec is more than ready to respond in case the SC seeks the poll body's comment on the Roque-led petition. "It’s not that we are sort of ignoring the Supreme Court… Sa Tuesday, mag e-en banc ang SC, pag humingi sila ng comment, we will comment. I think we will be able to answer it...Tuloy-tuloy ang poll automation [On Tuesday, the SC will meet en banc. If they ask for our comment, we will comment. I think we will be able to answer it. The automation of the polls is definitely on]," Melo said. Delay The contract was signed shortly before 5 p.m. The signing, which was originally scheduled to take place 2 p.m., was delayed for more than two hours due to "typographical errors," Special Bids and Awards Committee chairman Ferdinand Rafanan said. "There has been some minor corrections...sa editorial, some typographical errors," Rafanan told reporters without elaborating. Present to witness the signing was Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) head Henrietta de Villa. The automation of the 2010 polls was temporarily jeopardized after Filipino firm TIM announced last week that it would back out of its partnership with Barbados-based Smartmatic due to differences over how the project fund would be controlled. The two firms, however, managed to end their dispute Friday last week, although they did not reveal how they sorted out their differences. Earlier in the day, Roque said their fight against Smartmatic-TIM's automation of the 2010 national elections is not over even if the joint venture and the Comelec seals the contract because the petition asks for more than just a TRO against the signing. "Meron kaming iba't ibang mga prayer dun sa petisyon namin. Kung hindi namin mapigil yung pagpipirmahan nila, ang hinihingi namin sa korte e pigilan yung [pagpondo ng proyekto para nga hindi matuloy yung implementasyon [We have various prayers in our petition. If the contract-signing can't be stopped, we asked the court to bar the disbursement of funds for the project so that it will not be implemented]," Roque said. Comelec spokesman James Jimenez, however, expressed optimism that the automation of the 2010 elections will have smooth sailing. “Everyone’s happy actually at finally umabot na tayo sa puntong ito, after this tuloy-tuloy na po tayo sa implementasyon [Everyone's happy that we actually and finally reached this point. After this, we shall continue with the implementation (of the automated polls)]," Jimenez said in a radio interview, adding that the Philippines is currently making history with the signing of the poll automation deal. “Talagang mukhang lahat ng difficulties resolved na [and] we don't expect a lot of further problems. Certainly no major ones anymore [It seems like all the difficulties have been resolved]," he said. Jimenez said they would conduct road shows, field demonstration, and mock elections to further brief the public on how the machines would work. - With Jam Sisante and Aie B. See, GMANews.TV