The Commission on Elections on Thursday decided to drop the public bidding for the purchase of P85.8 million worth of thermal paper after the Smartmatic-Total Information Management offered to donate 1.1-million rolls of thermal paper and 2-million marking pens.
Voting 6-1, the commission en banc decided with finality to accept the donations of Smartmatic, Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista said.
However, Comelec Commissioner Rowena Guanzon opposed the decision, fearing that the poll body by accepting the offer might be violating the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.
“I have the lone dissenting opinion. It might violate the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act. But all the commissioners are lawyers and have their own interpretation,” Guanzon told reporters after the Comelec special en banc meeting.
Guanzon said the Comelec must report the donation to the CoA as part of its requirements.
“I just want to emphasize that there are CoA requirements that have to be met. If there is a donation, we have to report it. We have to report it because it is considered as an asset, of which we have to declare the worth,” she explained.
The Comelec Law Department, on the other hand, issued a four-page memorandum, reminding the en banc that they should properly document and record the said donations to “ensure transparency and accountability.”
On Wednesday, Smartmatic International Voter’s Education chief Karen Jimeno announced that the company was offering to donate the entire 1.1-million thermal paper rolls for use as vote receipts.
Jimeno said that the move is meant to help the Comelec address the “burdensome” requirements of the Government Procurement Act.
“Smartmatic has internally decided to donate 1.1 million rolls of thermal papers that would meet all the requirements for the issuance of the voter receipts and that would also address the problems of the very burdensome requirements of the Government Procurement Act,” she said.
Bautista, on the other hand, explained that the General Appropriation Act of 2016 says that Comelec may accept the donation that would help in the performance of its duties. Bautista said that going through with the public bidding may cause a delay in deploying the thermal paper on time.
He said that with the donations, the Comelec will be able to speed up their preparations for the automated elections.
He said that the donation gave the poll body P49-million savings.
Meanwhile, former Comelec commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal called on the poll body to reconsider its decision allowing a voter to replace his/her ballot in the event it is rejected by the vote counting machine.
Larrazabal wrote the Comelec, saying that the Comelec may ran out of ballots during Election Day.
But Bautista allayed the fears believing that there will be no shortage of ballots since it would be impossible that 100 percent of voters will vote on Election Day.
