Be vigilant in Comelec bid, Church leader says

An influential Church leader urged the public yesterday to be more vigilant in the monitoring of the bidding process to procure the Automated Election System (AES) that will be used for the 2016 polls by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Archbishop emeritus Oscar Cruz issued the call after Comelec announced that it will still include Smartmatic Philippines, Inc. in the list of its possible suppliers for the 2-billion worth of voting machines which will be used for 2016.

He said allowing the multinational company to participate in the elections again may taint the results of the next national elections.

“Let’s see, if Smartmatic is included and becomes the winning bidder, there might be a payoff,” Cruz said.

“Smartmatic is the last entity I will trust as far as elections are concerned,” he added.

Smartmatic supplied the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS), which was used by Comelec, during the 2010 and 2013 elections.

Cruz and other concerned groups have protested the move by Comelec to include Smartmatic in the bidding despite the controversies that continue to hound the use of PCOS machines, ranging from lack of transparency in processing votes to software licensing disputes.

In a separate statement, Smartmatic belied the accusation of its detractors saying these were baseless.

It also said it was the most qualified to provide the services needed by Comelec due to its previous stint as its service provider in the previous two elections.

“As manufacturers of the machines, Smartmatic can provide any services of maintenance, upgrade and refurbishing to Comelec,” Smartmatic Philippines president Ceasar Flores said.