Smartmatic head surrenders passport to Comelec, vows to stay in RP until polls finish

The president of poll machine supplier Smartmatic-Asia has surrendered his passport to the Commission on Elections (Comelec), and vowed to stay in the country until the May polls finish. Smartmatic-Asia president Cezar Flores on Saturday officially turned over his passport to Comelec commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, after Senator Jinggoy Estrada called on the Bureau of Immigration last Tuesday to place him under its watchlist to prevent him from leaving the country if polls fail. “Our priority is to make the election happen. We are not thinking of anything else," Flores said in a press briefing after turning over his passport. Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, for his part, said Flores has already expressed his commitment to be here in full force behind Comelec’s efforts “to make this elections successful." 70 percent of CF cards delivered Flores said in the same press briefing that all compact flash (CF) cards have already been reconfigured, and 70 percent of these devices have been delivered to more than 76,000 clustered precincts across the country. He said that almost all CF cards have already been delivered in Metro Manila, Northern Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao while devices for Southern Luzon are already in transit. He added that since more than half of the CF cards are already in place, “massive" testing and sealing of automated poll machines is expected to take place two days before the elections. “After that delivery, it is up to the Comelec regional directors to coordinate and pick up these cards to the precincts... Today, we are sure that we can see massive testing and sealing all over the country," he said. Flores added that all reconfigured CF cards are already reading the votes accurately, and that there have been no reports of malfunctioning cards as of posting time. The Comelec earlier pulled out and reconfigured all CF cards, which stores instructions to the PCOS machines as well as other critical ballot data, after the automated counting machines failed to read votes accurately when tested last Monday. (See: Some poll machines fail to read votes accurately) The poll body has also extended its timetable for testing and sealing of automated poll machines until May 9 due to these technical glitches. (See: Poll machine tests extended until a day before elections)—JV, GMANews.TV