Comelec chair to resign if automated elections fail

Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Jose Melo will resign if the Philippines’ first automated elections fail. However, he will only do so if it was the poll body’s fault. “If it’s my fault, I will get out pagka may nangyari (if anything bad happens)," he said during a press briefing on Wednesday. Melo was prompted to make this announcement after militant poll watchdog Kontra Daya on Tuesday asked for the resignation of the officials of the commission should the polls fail, regardless of whether it was the agency’s fault or not. Melo said that he will take responsibility for all of poll machine supplier Smartmatic-TIM’s failures, should there be any. “Sagot ng Smartmatic yun, sagot ko na rin yun (I will vouch for Smartmatic)," he said. Comelec awarded Smartmatic with the P7.2-billion contract to produce the 82,200 Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines and a P243-million contract to manufacture the ballot boxes for the 2010 elections. However, the poll body chief said that it is “not fair" to the Comelec officials and employees if they are blamed for some election problems that are out of their control. “Ang sinasagot namin diyan ay ang conduct of the elections, hindi naman nila kasalanan iyon, kunwari ang mga makina hindi gumana," he said. (What we are responsible for is the conduct of the elections. It should not be our fault if the machines suddenly stop working.) He added that the agency should only be held liable for having “wrong" results after the elections. “If the results are wrong, grabe yun (that’s too much)," he said. On the other hand, Melo jokingly asked their critics what they would do should the elections succeed. “Mag-reresign din ba sila (Will they be filing their resignation?)," he said. In an earlier interview, Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal admitted that an “internal agreement" had been reached among Comelec officials should the automated elections fail. He did not elaborate. "These are things that we have discussed. May internal agreement na kami doon. It was just not made public lang (We have an internal agreement but it was just not made public)," he said. - RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV