A GROUP of citizens asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to stop tomorrow’s signing of the contract for the 2010 Elections Automation Project by the Commission on Elections and the winning bidder, Smartmatic International and its local partner Total Information Management.
The petitioners, led by lawyer Harry Roque and his law partners, also asked the High Tribunal to declare the Comelec as having committed “grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction” when it awarded the P7.2 billion deal to the Smartmatic and TIM.
The 50-page petition said the Comelec failed to conduct a pilot testing of Smartmatic-TIM’s Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines, in violation of Republic Act 8436, which authorized the poll body to automate national and local polls.
The petitioners alleged that the PCOS machines that were offered to the poll body fail to satisfy the minimum system capabilities set RA 8436.
They said the Comelec and its Special Bids and Awards Committee, which conducted the bidding for the machines, required an accuracy rating of 99.995 percent for counting the votes.
But Smartmatic admitted in its website a 2 percent to 10 percent failure rate for its optical scanners, they said.
The petitioners also cited Smartmatic-TIM’s failure to submit all the required documents during the bidding process to show the “existence, composition and scope of their joint venture.”
Smartmatic and TIM were awarded the project on June 10, but their joint venture agreement was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 6, three days after they ironed out partnership issues.
Even then, the joint venture agreement does not satisfy the Supreme Court’s definition of a joint venture which, the petitioners said, “requires a community of interest in the performance of the subject matter.”
They quoted Comelec Chairman Jose Melo’s statement on June 29 that TIM was withdrawing from the partnership because of “irreconcilable differences” and “loss of confidence.”
Smartmatic and TIM settled their differences on July 3.
Named respondents were Melo, Comelec SBAC chair Ferdinand Rafanan, Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya, Smartmatic and TIM.
On Monday, Melo told the Senate blue ribbon committee that only the Supreme Court could stop the automation of the 2010 elections.
He was reacting to the threat of Cebu Rep. Pablo Garcia to seek a court injunction because the Comelec failed to pilot-test the automation during the 2007 polls.
The Comelec chairman told the committee that the automation of the 2008 election at the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was the equivalent of pilot testing.
Sen. Francis Escudero said, however, the ARMM election used a technology different from the PCOS machines that will be used next year.