Rep. Dino Tanjuatco of Rizal on Monday demanded the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to explain issues surrounding the P18-billion automated election contract for next year’s midterm polls.
“Eyes on the ball, Filipinos. The Comelec still has to answer many issues on prototype machines and noncompliant systems. Let us not be distracted by all this noise,” Rizal, member of the House committee on electoral reforms, said in a statement.
“If the machines fail spectacularly on Election Day in 2025 and the whole country is plunged into chaos, then we only have ourselves to blame for being sidetracked by this circus,” he added.
Tanjuatco noted that Miru System’s use of a prototype vote-counting machine (VCM) during the demonstration last February was “noncompliant with the terms of reference (TOR) for the procurement of automated election system (AES) but is also disallowed under the Automated Election Law.”
Tanjuatco and other legislators had noted that such a hybrid system should have been used or tested in other elections before it can be used in Philippine elections.
Citing Section 10 of Republic Act (RA) 9369, Tanjuatco pointed out that the AES procured by the Comelec “must have demonstrated capability and been successfully used in a prior electoral exercise here or abroad.”
“It’s a big red flag that the Automated Election Law has been violated. It does not help that Miru had been unsuccessful in using the DRE and OMR on separate occasions,” said Tanjuatco.
“Imagine if Miru will use the untested DRE-OMR hybrid in our elections next year. We Filipino voters will be guinea pigs, with no certainty that our votes will be collected efficiently and counted correctly,” he pointed out.
