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Comelec backtracks, says no rebidding of ink deal


There will be no rebidding for the delivery and supply of indelible ink that will be used in the May 10 elections, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) clarified on Monday. At a press briefing, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said they were satisfied with the results of the test done on Texas Resources Corporation’s indelible ink. “We’ve had a testing already . . . failure was very, very minor, it was not actually a failure," he said. “There’s no need to actually re-bid it." The testing was done on four solvents, Jimenez said. On Sunday, Jimenez said they would conduct a re-bidding for the indelible ink after Texas, the lone bidder, failed to meet their specifications. Jimenez on Monday said the problem was threshed out after they shook a sample bottle. Probe the bidding Last Week, Arwin Serrano, coordinator of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, said the poll body should investigate the bidding of the indelible ink. Serrano alleged that when the Comelec Bids and Awards (BAC) tested a sample of the sole bidder’s ink, it easily washed off and the mark it left did not last long. Under Section 35 of the Republic Act 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act, the state must look for new bidders in case the first one fails. The Comelec en banc has yet to award the contract to Texas, though no other company is currently eligible for the deal. The Comelec has allotted P77 million for 720,000 bottles of indelible ink, used to mark the index fingers of voters to deter flying voters. UV lamp deal On the other hand, Jimenez said they will conduct a re-bidding of the contract for the supply and delivery of the ultraviolet (UV) lamps that will be used to verify ballots on election day. He said that the poll body encountered a problem when the bidders failed to submit a shipping schedule. "Pass fail tayo, fail sila (We're on a pass-fail system, they failed)," he said. Three companies were vying for the UV lamp contract including OTC Paper Supply, the company that was awarded the botched P690-million ballot secrecy folder contract. It offered the lowest bid of P28 million. OTC manager Henry Young earlier said they were likely to back out of the bidding because of the controversy brought about by the ballot secrecy folder deal. The other bidders are Embu Integrated and Philand Industries. Jimenez said that since the first bidding had already failed, they are free to not participate in the next one. - GMANews.TV

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