"It is time we called out the Comelec and reiterate President Duterte’s earlier demand that the company be blacklisted and consigned to the dustbins."
What's with Smartmatic? I expected it to be consigned to oblivion immediately after the fiasco it engineered in the 2016 elections with the questionable kinks in its operating systems culminating in the weird tweaking of a word in the middle of the count. This in turn prompted an hours-long transmission downtime, thus putting the results under a cloud.
That was not the first time that Smartmatic, the Comelec's AES IT/operating partner, has come under heavy fire. In fact, since the time it became the sole partner of the poll body in implementing the country’s automated elections, its performance has been mired in controversy degrading the integrity of the electoral process no end.
But lo and behold, despite its odious reputation it has risen like the phoenix every time election comes. This time it has gotten to partner with the Comelec in the preparations for key components of the 2022 elections. Which can only lead to more problems.
Last May 5, the joint venture Pivot international and Power Serve filed a complaint against the seven-member Comelec Bids and Awards (BAC) Committee headed by the poll body’s IT Department Director Jeannie Flororita for alleged irregularities in the award of a P402-million software deal for election management system, vote counting machines and consolidated canvassing system to Smartmstic.
Earlier, last December 2020 the poll body awarded a P637-million contract to Smartmstic for the refurbishment of 97,345 VCM as well as the supply of 109,745 SD (secure digital) main cards and the same number of SD Worm (write once read only) cards and 250,000 cleaning sheets.
Although the poll body has yet to bid out other multi-billion peso contracts for various accessories and related systems, it is clear that the ones awarded to Smartmatic are the key components of the AES.
It is time we called out the Comelec and reiterate President Duterte’s earlier demand that the company be blacklisted and consigned to the dustbins.
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