Comelec in tight squeeze over small ARMM poll budget

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will be in a very tight situation when it conducts the automated elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) next year with a “very, very small budget," a poll body official said. Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said they will insist on the P2.98-billion budget they asked for the ARMM elections in August next year. However, the Department of Budget and Management slashed the Comelec’s proposal by P2.5 billion and approved only P480 million for the ARMM elections. “It’s very important that we fight for that kasi nga nasa batas naman na lahat ng election automated. P480 million, its gonna be a very, very tight squeeze if ever, to be honest with you (because) that would be a very, very small budget," Jimenez told reporters at the sidelines of the House appropriations committee hearing on the poll body’s P1.9 billion proposed 2011 budget. The Comelec’s proposed 2011 total budget for next year is P 2 million higher than this year's P1.9 billion but it is billions of pesos lower than the poll body’s proposal of P4.52 billion. Despite the cut, Jimenez said they will do their best to automate the ARMM polls. “We’ll see, we are not closing any doors. It’s too early to speak of impossibilities, matagal pa ang halalan (the elections are months away) and there’s always room to improve the design to make it cost efficient, to make it cost less and, if needed, to ask for more money," he said. With the tight budget, he said they will be forced to resort to partial automation. “You make sure you automate only those processes that are important for the orderly conduct of the elections," Jimenez said. “It will have to depend on what we asked for dun sa ating (according to our) specifications, it will depend on how complicated we want the elections to be or to say it very simply, how we want it high-tech to be, there’s always room for making sure that everything is streamlined. You don’t automate for automation’s sake," he added. He said there is still no assurance if the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines will be used in the ARMM polls because they still have to assess its performance in the May national polls. “There isn’t even any assurance na PCOS ang gagamitin, remember sa ating system every election you use a technology, so we assess the performance of PCOS in 2010 and that will be the basis for deciding kung anong gagamitin sa ARMM and in the 2013," he said. He added they will be waiting for the recommendation of the advisory council on which technology they will be using. The poll body expects to get the recommendation and decide on it by the end of the year. On the other aspects of their budget, he said the poll body will try to even out the cut. “If a cut is too big on one particular area, we will have to ask for authority to essentially balance out the budget so that hindi mawalan lahat (not everything will be cut) in some necessary aspect," he said. Lahat ng item sa budget importante (All items in the budget are important) and if you cut it ma-a-out of balance yung buong exercise so we have to spread it out," he said. The appropriations committee deferred the approval of the Comelec budget due to the absence of Chairman Jose Armando Melo, Commissioners Gregorio Larrazabal, Rene Sarmiento and Armando Velasco. Velasco was out of the country observing elections in other country while Sarmiento was in Thailand. Larrazabal and Melo were on leave. Only Commissioners Nicodemo Ferrer, Lucenito Tagle and Elias Yusoph, Jimenez and their directors attended the budget hearing. The committee hearing was moved to the end of the month. –VVP, GMANews.TV