Govt saves P200M in ballot printing cost for May polls

The government was able to save more than P200 million in the cost of printing ballots that will be used in the May elections. This was after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) convinced the National Printing Office (NPO) to give them the lowest price of P2.50/ballot from the P7.20/ballot cost of printing. “It went down from P7.20 to P2.50 per ballot . . . we were able to haggle it down," said Comelec chairman Jose Melo. In the last May 2007 polls, the Comelec paid NPO around P337.5 million for printing 45 million ballots. But for May, the commission will be paying only around P123 million for the estimated 49.3 million registered voters or P214 million less from the previous polls. Section 184 of the Omnibus Election Code states that only the NPO and the Central Bank of the Philippines can print the official ballots to be used for every elections in the country under the supervision of the Comelec. Melo said that they target to print the ballots on January 25. - Jerrie Abella/KBK, GMANews.TV