Pimentel lauds SC ruling on ACMs

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. yesterday commended the Supreme Court for denying the petition of President Arroyo’s election lawyer to allow the use of automated counting machines (ACMs) purchased by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in 2003.

Pimentel, who has been very vocal against the use of the counting machines purchased through a contract that was invalidated by the SC, said the High Court "demonstrated the highest sense of righteousness, wisdom and justice" by repudiating the petition filed by Romulo Macalintal asking the court to allow use of the ACMs for the 2007 elections.

"I salute the Supreme Court for trashing the unabashed try by people associated with some Comelec and Mega Pacific officials to use the illegally obtained counting machines in next year’s elections," he said.

The Comelec purchased the ACMs from the Mega Pacific Consortium in 2003 for the national elections in 2004.

This contract was declared null and void by the Supreme Court because of irregularities in the bidding process and the alleged technical deficiencies of the machines.

According to Pimentel, the individuals behind the anomalous deal would have hit three birds with one stone and would have benefited from a favorable ruling on Macalintal’s petition.

He said a favorable court ruling would have allowed election officials and private individuals involved in the deal to evade criminal prosecution; prevented the government from recovering the money paid for the equipment; and allowed the use of defective ACMs for possible cheating operations in the 2007 elections.

Pimentel criticized Malacañang for backing the Comelec’s position to use the 1,991 idle ACMs in the 2007 elections.

He said such moves were irresponsible on Malacañang’s part, considering that the SC already ordered the Comelec to return the ACMs to MPC and tasked the Office of the Solicitor General with recovering the money paid for the equipment.

Pimentel is one of the complainants in the graft charges against Comelec officials, led by chairman Benjamin Abalos, before the Office of the Ombudsman.

Sen. Joker Arroyo said the Comelec, Malacañang, the Ombudsman and the Senate "are duty bound to obey and respect" the SC decision and not to subvert it.

Arroyo is the chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee which investigated the Comelec-Mega Pacific deal and found that the transaction was anomalous.

He urged his colleagues in the Senate, in deliberating the Malacañang-endorsed automation of elections bill, to be guided by the Supreme Court’s resolution.

‘Prevent Garci-type fraud’

Meanwhile, left-wing party-list groups have asked that the 2007 elections be automated to prevent any new "Garci-type" poll fraud operations from happening.

"Much-needed election modernization and reform initiatives must now be implemented in the forthcoming midterm elections in 2007, particularly the stalled automation of vote-counting, if we want to put an end to the continuous growling over election cheating issues such as that of the ‘Hello, Garci’ tape controversies," the militant party-list groups said in a statement issued by Assalam party-list chairperson Penny Disimban.

"We were once cheated," Disimban said in the statement. "We will not allow a repeat of such thwarting of the people’s will and we see the automation of elections, at least the critical aspect of vote-counting, as a necessary step in the entire cleansing process."

The 2004 elections were supposed to be computerized and the vote-counting process upgraded with the use of the MPC ACMs, but the SC nullified the purchase contract between the Comelec and MPC in 2003.

"If there are legitimate legal cases against certain personalities involved in the deal, it certainly has to be resolved expeditiously, to once and for all serve justice," said Danilo Singh of the ASAP party-list group. "But it would be an outright injustice to the Filipino people if these computer systems, already paid for (with) taxpayers’ money, are not used when they can be... as attested to by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST)."