‘The biggest threat to the 2016 elections is China’ – poll official

The Commission on Election (Comelec) is making sure that the automated elections will push through without any incident in 2016 and will not in anyway be held hostage by events related to the current territorial dispute with China.

Briefing the House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms yesterday, Comelec Commissioner Christian Lim said the maritime row with China is the reason why they decided to have the 93,000 optical mark read-

ers (OMRs) be manufactured in Taiwan instead of China after receiving intelligence reports that China may attempt to sabotage the May 2016 polls.

“I also want to emphasize that the move to Taiwan was a product of the contract negotiations because we have received intelligence reports that there may be an attempt to sabotage the elections by China,” he told the panel chaired by Capiz Rep. Fredenil Castro. They reportedly received the information from a military source sometime in June or July.

“The commission made it non-negotiable that the provider would have to transfer the facilities to Taiwan at their expense,” he added.

“We are concerned that as a result, if any, of the arbitration that it may have an effect... I feel personally that the biggest threat to the 2016 elections is China,” Lim said.

Manila Bulletin tried to get the side of the Chinese government, but the Embassy of China has not returned calls as of press time.

During the hearing, Comelec chairman Andres Bautista said they made such decision “because of current conditions,” referring to the Philippines’ ongoing arbitration case which the Philippines filed before the Arbitral Tribunal in the Hague against China’s nine-dash line claim that has encroached on Philippine territory.

The Tribunal is expected to hand down its decision whether it has jurisdiction over the dispute by the end of 2015.

“Initially sa contract negotiations, we made it a point to discuss with Smartmatic that we didn’t want the factory in China although we announced that it was going to be in Suzhou... we made a condition in the contract negotiations that they will do it outside China. We don’t want the complications,” Lim said.

‘Elephant in the room’

“Also one reason why we want all deliveries of machines by January because we are anticipating the release of the arbitration decision by then so baka may trade embargo, may mga issues dyan so we don’t want that, we want to avoid the complications,” he pointed out.

Lim said they just wanted to take precautions after receiving the intelligence report.

“Di lang sabotage mismo sa machine, baka may issue ng trade embargo so pano lalabas yung mga machines mo? May restrictions on visiting the site, o pano namin maiinspect? (It’s not only sabotage in the machine itself. There might be other issues like trade embargo. If that happens how will you get your machines? There could be restrictions on visiting the site. How can we inspect the machines?) We wanted to take less precaution,” he said.

“Once China decides to make a trade embargo na walang trade, so any product made in China will not be coming in the Philippines. Walang (No) machine. There’s a lot of possibilities,” he added.

The Comelec commissioner said they did not raise the issue with Malacanang since they already hammered out the issue with Smartmatic which will manufacture the vote-counting machines.

He said they have been assured by Smartmatic that there is no additional cost for the transfer of the factory.

Better paranoid

When asked if there is official notification from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), he said, “It’s an elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about.”

Lim said they are not discounting the possibility that the 2016 polls will be sabotaged.

“Possible naman yan (sabotage), pero samin naman kasi (for us) before we accept a machine, tinetest namin (we test the machine first). Pero kung sinabotage nila na ubos na yung oras ng manufacturing, syempre affected yung eleksyon natin (But if they sabotage it in the sense that the time used in manufacturing the machines is too long, naturally our elections will be affected),” he said.

“For me, it pays to be paranoid to make sure elections happen,” he pointed out.

Smartmatic project manager Marlon Garcia said they will bear the additional cost of transferring the manufacturing of OMRs to Taiwan and the poll body cannot be faulted for making such decision.

During the hearing, Lim also disclosed that Smartmatic will refurbish old 6,000 Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines.