Comelec urged to explain disqualification of 2 bidders

MANILA, Philippines - The vice chairman of the House of Representatives’ committee on suffrage and electoral reforms wants to know why the Commission on Elections (Comelec) disqualified Smartmatic-TIM and Indra Sistemas, the only two bidders for the P2.5-billion contract to supply additional optical mark reader (OMR) machines for the 2016 elections.

Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. cited a report of the Comelec bids and awards committee (BAC) that Smartmatic was disqualified on a technicality after it submitted documents that did not indicate prices on certain items or did not use zeroes – but only dashes – on its figures.

On the other hand, Indra was disqualified for submitting a bid of P3.6 billion, higher than the Comelec requirement to supply some 23,000 OMR machines.

In a privilege speech, Barzaga said the Comelec has set a second bidding, which was very suspicious when the rules that govern the BAC, particularly issuances of the Government Procurement Policy Board (GPPB), were clear.

“There is no need for a second bidding considering that one of the bids should have been declared as responsive,” he said.

“Why declare a failure of bidding when in fact, it is evident that one of the bids is responsive, and there is in fact a winning bid? Is it intentional to delay the preparations and planning which could eventually raise more questions on the transparency of the conduct of the 2016 elections? Will this lead to the 2016 elections being in peril?” 

The “responsive” bid was Smartmatic’s as GPPB rules and issuances have long allowed the use of dashes or hyphens in place of zeroes, he added.