Miru completes 110,620 counting machines

MANILA, Philippines — Two months ahead of schedule, the joint venture (JV) led by Miru Systems completed the production of the 110,620 automated counting machines (ACMs) for the May 2025 midterm elections.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) said all the 110,620 ACM units have been completely manufactured by Miru Systems in its production plant in South Korea.

“Miru JV hurdled, well in advance, the final milestone of the Full Automation with Transparency Audit and Count project, with the completion of the manufacture of the 110,620 ACMs,” the Comelec said yesterday.

The poll body said the last unit of ACM to come out of the assembly lines at the Miru production plant in South Korea was manufactured two months earlier than the December deadline.

According to the Comelec, there are 78,456 ACM units currently stored at its warehouse in Biñan, Laguna and are currently undergoing the mandatory stress test and hardware acceptance test.

The remaining 32,164 ACM units are either at the Bureau of Customs in the Philippines for clearing, in transit from South Korea to the Philippines or are being trucked and loaded in a South Korean port. This will be the last batch of ACMs to be delivered to the country.

Comelec Chairman George Garcia said Miru Systems assured the commission that it would be able to complete the delivery of all the ACMs early this month.

The poll body lauded the Miru JV for consistently completing the manufacture and delivery of the ACMs and its peripherals ahead of the timelines.

External batteries, power cords, SD cards, thermal paper, smartcards for the Electoral Board and other election paraphernalia have already been delivered, according to Comelec.

Miru has also delivered all servers, printers and laptops for the consolidation and canvassing of votes, the modems/USB kits for the transmission of votes, as well as the headsets for the use of persons with disability voters.

Meanwhile, Comelec has formally accepted the new Net Financial Contracting Capacity (NFCC) of the remaining local partners of the joint venture contracted to supply the automated election system (AES) for the midterm polls.

In a resolution, the commission said the NFCC submitted by Miru Systems and its remaining local partners, Integrated Computer Systems (ICS) and Centerpoint Solutions Technologies Inc. (CPSTI), is “sufficient and in order.”

The commission noted that the new NFCC’s amount of P19,253,817,256.42 is more than the project’s contract price of P17,988,878,226.55.

After a thorough assessment, Comelec’s law department and the project management office recommended that the commission consider and declare the new NFCC submitted by the remaining partners of the Miru-ICS-STCC-CPSTI joint venture, in compliance with the commission’s directive.

St. Timothy’s Construction Co. (STCC), one of the local partners that provided the NFCC for the AES project, previously withdrew from the Miru-led joint venture.

This prompted the Comelec to require the remaining members of the Joint venture to submit a replacement NFCC.

Garcia said they are still looking into the possible liability of STCC officials after their withdrawal from the joint venture.

“We are following up with the law department on the criminal, civil and administrative liability study due to the withdrawal of one of the joint venture partners,” Garcia said yesterday.

The Comelec has also posted the certificates of candidacy and the certificates of nomination and acceptance of the 66 aspirants for the senate.