SC asked to halt Comelec deal with Miru

FORMER Caloocan Representative Edgar Erice on Thursday filed a petition before the Supreme Court (SC) seeking to immediately enjoin the Commission on Elections (Comelec) from implementing its P17.9-billion Automated Election System (AES) contract with a joint venture led by South Korea’s Miru Systems Co. Ltd. for the 2025 national and local elections.

In his petition for certiorari with prayer for the issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO) and/or a writ of preliminary injunction, Erice also asked the Court to eventually declare null and void the Comelec’s en banc resolution issued on February 21, 2024 which awarded the Full Automation System with Transparency Audit/count (FASTRAC) contract to Miru and its partners St. Timothy Construction Corp. and Centerpoint Solutions Technologies.

The former solon also urged the Court to nullify the implementation of any other contract that the poll body may have entered into with the Korean firm in connection with the incoming elections.

In his petition, Erice said the deal violated the provisions of Republic Act (RA) 7369 or the Automated Election Law, particularly on the bidding procedures and the use of prototype machines during the election process.

“We will become guinea pigs, it’s against the law,” Erice told reporters.

He also indicated that the contract is highly disadvantageous to the government and described it as a “robbery in progress.”

“I think the government stands to lose around P10 billion because of this contract,” the former lawmaker said.

He noted that the government had not spent over P6 billion in the last five automated elections.“it’s the first time that we will be spending P18 billion.”

The petition was filed a day after the Supreme Court (SC) ruled that the Comelec committed grave abuse of discretion in disqualifying Smartmatic-tim Corp. from participating in the bidding process for the 2025 AES without giving it the opportunity to submit any bid and without any reference to the eligibility requirements prescribed by its Bids and Awards Committee.

Erice, however, denied that Smartmatic was behind his petition, claiming that he had been preparing for its filing since three weeks ago.

The recent Court’s decision favoring Smartmatic, according to Erice, only bolstered his suspicion that there were irregularities surrounding the contract with Miru.

“Imagine, we have voting machines, we actually owned these machines because we bought them from Smartmatic, [They are] still good until 2025. In November 2022, Comelec certified that the 97,000 machines were in good working condition, they were still functioning.

Then, in less than a year, they were declared unserviceable although they were still covered by the warranties issued by Smartmatic,” Erice said.

“Instead of declaring them unserviceable, the most logical thing to do in order for the government to save money, was to have them fixed for free and utilize them in the coming elections,” he added.

He also noted that after declaring the machines unserviceable, the Comelec disqualified Smartmatic from joining the bidding process.

The former solon said he is mulling to file an impeachment case against Comelec Commissioner George Garcia because of these alleged anomalies.

SC Spokesman Camille Sue Mae Ting on Tuesday said the Court did not nullify Comelec’s contract with Miru despite finding grave abuse of discretion on the part of Comelec in excluding Smartmatic from its bidding process.

She clarified that the validity of Miru’s contract with Comelec was not the issue presented in the case before the SC.

Ting also said the Court’s ruling is not tantamount to upholding Comelec’s contract with Miru since it was not the issue decided upon by the magistrates.

Impact on elections

COMELEC said it is ready to face the petition filed before the SC. However, the poll body noted that Erice’s petition could derail its preparations for the automated 2025 National and Local Elections (NLE).

In a radio interview last Thursday, Garcia said the agency“welcomes” the opportunity to defend FASTRAC contract with Miru before the High Court.

“That is a welcome development. We accept that,” Garcia said in Filipino.

The only concern of Comelec on the matter, Garcia said, is it can prevent them from conducting an automated election next year, which will violate RA 8436 or the Automated Election System Act.

“In case we will be stopped (by the SC), then the production of (vote counting) machines will not push through,” Garcia said.

“And if [the SC] will not stop us, but it will later say the awarding process [of the contract] is nullified, it will have the same end result and we might not be able to automate the election,” he added.

Miru is scheduled to start the production of the 110,000 voting machines, which it will lease to Comelec, on April 19.