By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines--The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has rejected anew a bid made by a joint venture to automate the August 11 elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), a resolution issued by the poll body showed.

The rejection of the bid follows the disqualification of a previous bid for non-eligibility, leaving no qualified bidders remaining for the automation project, which the Comelec considers as pilot testing for the automation of local and national elections in 2010.

According to Comelec resolution 8436 dated April 11, 2008, a copy of which was obtained by INQUIRER.net, the Comelec en banc has adopted the recommendation of its Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) to reject the bid tendered by the Smartmatic Sahi joint venture after the latter failed to comply with several mandatory technical requirements set out in the request for proposal, which was drafted by the poll body in collaboration with an advisory council.

Comelec officials were unavailable for comment as of this writing.

The poll body decided after "extensive deliberation" that it would adopt the recommendations made by the BAC in a memorandum dated April 8, 2008.

Smartmatic Sahi had initially been found eligible to bid for the electronic voting system using direct recording electronic (DRE) technology.

The Comelec resolution noted that the advisory council had recommended that the while bidder Smartmatic Sahi was non-compliant, it did offer "substitute solutions" that the council deemed in "substantial compliance" with Comelec's requirements.

But the BAC insisted that the "substantial compliance" was not enough to "cure the defect of the bidder's bid."

The BAC stressed that the evaluation criteraia used are "non-discretionary in nature and as such do not admit of partial compliance regardless of how substantial such partial compliance might be."

The Comelec en banc agreed with the BAC, saying that it should exercise caution and prudence because of past cases the poll body had to face.

"The Commission shares the Bids and Awards Committee's determination to strictly abide by the bidding rules governing this procurement, comfortably with the decision on the Supreme Court in Information Technology Foundation of the Philippines v. the Commission on Elections," the resolution read.

The Commission en banc was referring to the P1.3 billion poll automation project that was voided by the high court after the BAC was found to have changed the specifications during the bidding process.

The resolution also requested that the advisory council should "formalize recommendations for the automation of the 2010 national and local elections" and to prepare terms of reference for that project.

The resolution also directed senior Comelec staff to work with the advisory council on an "implementable timetable" for the 2010 poll automation, which would have the public bidding process start not later than June this year.

Based on the recommendations of an advisory council, Comelec is using two technologies in the ARMM elections: direct recording electronic (DRE) and optical-mark reader.

The Comelec en banc's decision to use the DRE technology for the whole province of Maguindanao was contrary to the advisory council's recommendation, which limited the use of DRE to two cities or municipalities.

The Department of Budget and Management has allocated about P867 million for the automation of the elections in ARMM.

The Comelec en banc decided to use the DRE for the whole province of Maguindanao to fully test the technology in time for the 2010 elections. The advisory council is the body of expert advisers created under Republic Act 9369 and given the task of recommending to the Comelec which technology to use for the automation of elections.

DRE uses a touch-screen or touch-pad technology for voting, while OMR requires voters to complete a paper-based ballot which is then fed into a specially designed machine, similar to a scanner.

The advisory council had recommended a six-month schedule for the deployment of the automated election system. This will also include training of voters and the users in Comelec, and "mock elections."

SOURCE: Inquirer.Net 

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