A LEGISLATOR has urged the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to consider reusing its existing vote-counting machines (VCMs) in next year’s midterm polls to save the government close to P8 billion.
The amount to be saved, according to Rizal Rep. Emigdio Tanjuatco III, can instead be spent on much-needed public goods and services.
Tanjuatco echoed the suggestion of his fellow legislators who are pushing for the use of the 97,000 VCMs earlier bought from Smartmatic. This, with lingering concerns on the unreliability of the new “hybrid” voting and counting system contracted by the Comelec casting a shadow on the less-than-a-year of preparations for the national and local elections in May 2025.
“First and foremost, the P18-billion contract between the Comelec and Miru Systems Co. Ltd. does not comply with the terms of reference (TOR) of the automated election system (AES). I was present during the first demo of Miru’s machines in the Comelec, where I witnessed the deficiencies first hand,” said Tanjuatco, a member of the House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms.
Specifically, Tanjuatco questioned the integrity of vote-counting, saying he personally saw that Miru’s prototype machine read crumpled, marked and torn sample ballots during the demo in February.
\The Rizal lawmaker likewise decried the railroading of the contract signing despite mounting calls for the Comelec to first look into the controversies surrounding Miru’s bid, especially the South Korean firm’s submission of an unused prototype — a practice disallowed by the law.
Similarly, the Supreme Court had ruled that the Comelec committed a grave abuse of discretion when it disqualified Smartmatic from the bidding, making Miru the lone bidder and paving the way for it to bag the deal despite disturbing reports of incompetence in the elections it had handled in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Iraq, among others.
On top of the irregularities hounding the biggest-ever contract awarded by the Comelec since it rolled out automated elections in 2010, it did not help that the current harder times brought about by high consumer prices squeezed the pockets of households bone dry.
“Instead of spending so much money on an untested AES, which greatly risks failing the Filipino electorate, why not reuse the VCMs in the Comelec’s possession? These machines are still covered by warranty until next year,” Tanjuatco pointed out.
“Reusing these VCMs is a very viable option given the government’s present challenges in providing critical funds to support social amelioration, food security and universal health care,” the solon added.
For Tanjuatco, the existing VCMs are the most practical solution that can put an end to the flurry of issues being raised against the Comelec-Miru deal.
“The VCMs had been verified to be in working condition, as after retrieval, each VCM was inspected individually and restored to perfect condition, as validated by the Comelec itself,” Tanjuatco noted.
The Comelec’s VCMs also have a track record to speak of, hence will uphold election integrity. “For the 2025 elections, the voting machine will be used as an optical scanner, allowing the Comelec to utilize its existing machines. The VCM inventory complies with 95 percent of the requirements for the optical scanner functionality, as specified in the AES’ TOR,” he explained.
“The machines have been tested and they perform well. Only 1.8 percent of these VCMs experienced issues in the past elections, which is better than expected. For comparison, deploying 100,000 MacBooks can result in up to 10 percent experiencing issues; for laptops with Microsoft software, it can be even higher — up to 20 percent,” Tanjuatco added.
“We enjoin the Comelec to heed the call of a growing number of legislators urging the poll body to instead reuse its own VCMs in the 2025 polls. The billions of pesos in savings can bridge the budgetary gaps in essential services that the government is mandated to provide,” Tanjuatco stressed.