Commission on Elections Chairman Andres Bautista on Thursday said that the supplier of ballots for the May elections may be held liable for an error that forced the Comelec to stop the printing of ballots.
Although Bautista is not keen on pursuing a case, he told reporters on Thursday that the supplier may be brought to court if it fails to meet the April 25 deadline for the printing of ballots.
The supplier allegedly failed to include the name of the political party of presidential aspirant Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago—People’s Reform Party—beside her name on the ballot.
But Bautista said that the Comelec has made provision for errors to be corrected.
Bautista added that despite any errors committed, what’s important to him is the supplier is able to meet the April 25 deadline.
The supplier turned out to be Smartmatic–Total Information Management, according to the Administrative Services Department of the Comelec.
Both Bautista and head of the printing committee Genevieve Velicaria-Guevarra confirmed that the printing of the official ballots was halted on Tuesday, a day after it began.
“No party was written beside the name of Santiago,” Bautista said in Filipino.
Guevarra said the National Printing Office was able to print 39 ballots for final testing and sealing for overseas ballots for Japan when they found the error.
She said as soon as they learned of the error, they alerted the Comelec to correct and change the ballot face.
Bautista said they will proceed with the printing of the 1,189,350 official ballots for overseas absentee voters.
Earlier, Velicaria-Guevarra said that during the first week of the printing operation, they will be able to print 100,000 to 200,000 ballots per day.
NPO can produce more than one-million ballots per day, she said.
The NPO has 71 days to produce 54.36 million ballots for Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, 1.18 million overseas absentee voting ballots and 1.2 million ballots for testing.
Meanwhile, Former Comelec commissioner and Nationalist People’s Coalition legal counsel Gregorio Larrazabal asked the poll body to explain what will be done to the ballots with errors.
In a two-page letter sent to the Comelec office on Thursday, Larrazabal wrote a clarification letter and asked five questions about the issue.
Larrazabal and NPC also expressed disappointment that despite the resumption of the printing operation, he has yet to receive any response from the Comelec.
“Considering that the ballot printing has already begun, it is disturbing that we have not yet received answers to the questions previously raised,” he said.