Gov’t saved P4.43 B from ACM purchase, says Comelec

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) said the government was able to save P4.43 billion from the winning bid of Mega Pacific Consortium (MPC) for automated counting machines (ACM) which were bid out early last year for the 2004 elections in compliance with Republic Act 8436.

Comelec Commissioner Resurreccion Borra told the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee last Monday that this was the result of a comparative study made by the Comelec between the bids of MPC and Total Information Management Consortium (TIMC), the losing bidder.

Borra, who was in charge of the Comelec’s 2004 automated counting and canvassing project, made an audio-visual presentation before the Senate body and enumerated how the savings were realized.

At the same time, Borra disputed allegations that the bidding rules were tailored-made to favor MPC.

He said that since 2002, under the term of former Comelec Chairman Alfredo Benipayo, the Comelec had made numerous consultation conferences with the private sector, spearheaded by the National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) that invited and involved the captains of industry.

During those consultation conferences, a consensus was arrived at pegging the hardware budget at P900 million and the budget for software and related services at P400 million, for a total budget of P1.3 billion.

The consultation process further formed the basis for the terms of reference and request for proposal for the automation project which was finally bid out in March 2003.

"The procurement of (the counting machines) was done through public bidding and MPC’s bid was within the government estimate," Borra said.

Borra’s presentation showed that while MPC offered to count 40 million ballots at a bid price of P1.248 billion, TIMC can count only 14.7 million and yet at a higher cost of P1.298 billion.

It also noted that MPC’s coverage is nationwide while TIMC is restricted to Mindanao and the National Capital Region (NCR) only. Cost per voter for TIMC was a high of P88.30 versus P31.22 for MPC. Another point raised by the Comelec was the technical evaluation conducted by the Department of Science and Technology which showed the rated capacity of ballots counted in one minute per machine.

TIMC’s machine is manually fed and can count only 10 ballots per minute; MPC’s automatic feeding machine can count 50 ballots per minute per machine. TIMC’s antiquated machine cannot detect and reject fake ballots, while MPC’s machine detects and rejects fake ballots.

It was added that cost per ballot per minute was higher by 355 percent for TIMC at P57,130 versus MPC’s P12,536.

To be able to reach MPC’s capacity, the Comelec said TIMC would have to charge the government P5.678 billion for 40 million ballots to be counted. Hence, Comelec’s award to MPC saved the government P4.43 billion.