Poll lawyer warns of ‘no-el’

President Arroyo’s election lawyer yesterday raised the likelihood that there will be no elections in 2007, saying there’s not much time left for poll officials to conduct an "honest-to-goodness’’ bidding for a new automated counting machine (ACM) contract.

Lawyer Romulo Macalintal said a partial automation of the May 2007 elections, which is being pushed by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Congress, would still require the poll body to bid out a new ACM contract.

"With partial automation using new machines, the May 2007 polls have to be postponed because the Comelec will not have enough time to conduct an honest-to-goodness bidding for new computer hardware and software for the planned automation,’’ Macalintal said in a statement.

"New bidding has to be conducted for new machines for automated election and how long will it take the Comelec to conduct an honest-to-goodness bidding for the proposed partial automation?’’ he asked.

Macalintal is against the proposal of the Comelec and Congress for partial poll automation in 2007.

He noted that the bidding process for 1,991 ACMs took about a year to finalize and yet the Comelec was accused of "inexplicable haste’’ in awarding the project to the Mega Pacific consortium.

"The same accusation might be hurled against the poll body and its officials since it may not have the luxury of time to properly evaluate the qualifications of the participating bidders (for a new contract),’’ he said.

Macalintal pointed out that partial automation in 30,000 precincts, as proposed by the Senate, would involve more than seven million voters. This would require the printing of a similar number of ballots, 30,000 election returns consisting of about 50 pages per return or a total of 1.5 million pages, several thousand copies of statements of voters per precinct or per municipality or city, certificates of canvass, certificates of votes, certificates of candidacy and other voting paraphernalia.

He added that even partial automation would require training Comelec personnel and poll watchers as well as a massive information campaign for voters.

"The new bidding has to be conducted for these forms for automated election. Again, how long will it take the Comelec to conduct an honest to goodness bidding for these millions of forms for the proposed partial automation?’’ Macalintal asked.

He added that "even the period to file certificate of candidacy had to be adjusted.’’

"In other words, it is not as easy as that for the Comelec to undertake a partial automation with the use of new automated machines whose hardware and software have yet to be designed or developed and with manual voting in other areas,’’ Macalintal said.

Meanwhile, Macalintal said the petition of the Information Technology Foundation of the Philippines (ITFP) with the Supreme Court to cite the Ombudsman for contempt over the ACM conract "is untenable and will not prosper.’’

ITFP wants the Ombudsman cited for contempt for clearing Comelec officials of criminal liability in the anomalous ACM deal with MegaPacific.

He said the best way to determine the flaws in the Ombudsman’s decision is to test the reliability of the 1,990 ACMs for next year’s elections.

"If these machines fail in the test, then that would be the strongest evidence against the Ombudsman’s decision and against the said Comelec and MPC officials’s liabilities,’’ Macalintal said.

"If these ACMs pass the test, then by all means let us use them without prejudice to the ongoing civil case for recovery of P1.2 billion against the MPC which is now pending before a trial court in Makati City,’’ he said.