Give automation a chance - Gordon

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Richard Gordon urged poll automation detractors yesterday to stop slowing down efforts to automate the May 2010 presidential elections to allow clean, honest and credible electoral exercises next year.

Gordon made the call after the Commission on Elections expressed concern that a temporary restraining order by the Supreme Court on the poll automation contract would force a return to manual elections in 2010.

Gordon, author of Republic Act No. 9369 or the amended Automated Elections System Law, pointed out that former President Corazon Aquino’s death has awakened the people to the need for change, particularly through credible and honest elections.

“With the nation grieving for Cory, Philippine politics must be redeemed in the next elections where we must vote for candidates who possess the transformational values of people power,” Gordon said.

“Automating the elections next year will be a game-changer in Philippine politics and will take the country out of the political rut that it has fallen into,” he said.

 “Speed will be the operative word in automated elections. Hence, it will ensure that the people’s votes will really be counted and their voices will really be heard,” he added.

“Why don’t we give automation a chance? Our mindset is that we haven’t started yet but we are already tying down ourselves (to the old system),” he said.

The Concerned Citizens’ Movement, a civil society group, has asked the SC to prevent the release of P2.875 billion in advance payments to contractor Smartmatic-Total Information Management, even as an earlier petition against the contract is still pending.

The CCM has expressed fears that the alleged “violations” in the contract have put the government at the losing end should the project fail.

The SC held oral arguments on the petition last July 29. It ordered the parties concerned to submit their written memoranda within 10 days after the oral arguments.