Palace cuts budget for 2013 polls

MANILA, Philippines - The Aquino administration has cut the budget for the 2013 automated elections following the decision of the Supreme Court last month favoring the P1.8-billion purchase of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said yesterday.

According to the P2.006-trillion 2013 National Expenditure Program (NEP), the budget for next year’s polls is down to P8.383 billion from the P10.017 billion programmed for 2012.

At the same time, the NEP also showed that of the P10.017 billion programmed for this year, a savings of P5 billion would be carried over to the 2013 budget.

The P8.383 billion would be used to fix problematic machines, pay the per diem of public school teachers and fund other operational expenses of next year’s nationwide polls.

Last month, the Supreme Court favored the P1.8-billion purchase of PCOS machines from Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) Corp.

The high court ruled that the contract between the Commission on Elections and Smartmatic entered into before the May 2010 polls, was still in effect when the Comelec decided to purchase some 82,000 machines.

Various groups questioned the court’s decision, saying that billions will be given to Smartmatic even without proper bidding procedures.

The groups argued that the new purchase contract was illegal since it should have been bid out as required under Republic Act 9184 or the Government Procurement Act.

The Comelec said the purchase option was necessary because of the lower budget for the 2013 elections.

Contentious

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court (SC) yesterday ordered the Comelec to answer the appeal filed by an election watchdog of its ruling last month allowing government to proceed with its P1.8-billion deal for the purchase of PCOS machines for next year’s automated mid-term national polls.                                    

SC spokesperson Ma. Victoria Gleoresty Guerra said the poll body was given 10 days from receipt of notice to comply and submit comment on the motion for reconsideration filed by Automated Election System Watch (AESW) led by former Vice President Teofisto Guingona.

In their appeal, the group said majority of the justices erred in dismissing their consolidated petition seeking to stop Comelec and Smartmatic from proceeding with their contract for the purchase of some 82,000 machines used in the 2010 polls. – With Edu Punay