Comelec to improve IT skills of personnel

MANILA, Philippines - Saying the Commission on Elections (Comelec) should be able to fully manage the conduct of automated elections, Comelec Commissioner Augusto Lagman wants all election personnel to improve their information technology (IT) capability.

Lagman said he would propose a thorough training of Comelec personnel in preparation for the next automated elections.

“I don’t want the Comelec to be dependent on vendors (suppliers). What happened last year was that it was a foreign group that ran the elections. I think that’s bad,” he told The STAR.

For the May 2010 polls, the Comelec had used precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines supplied by the Netherlands-based Smartmatic International Corporation and its Filipino partner Total Information Management Corp.

Smartmatic had to send its IT personnel to fix the PCOS machines when they encountered problems.

He said Comelec should also be more transparent in its transactions.

Lagman was among those who assailed the poll body for not revealing the source code used in the PCOS machines and the contract that it signed with Smartmatic-TIM.

“We need to regain the credibility of the Comelec and one of the most effective ways of doing that is by becoming transparent in all of our transactions,” he said.

Lagman added the Comelec should not only focus on the automation of elections but also its internal systems, particularly its finances, for them to easily spot irregularities and identify the wrongdoers.