EDITORIAL - Overpriced

MANILA, Philippines – These are just folders made of blue polypropylene, 9.5 inches wide and 28 inches long, to be used for shielding voters from prying eyes as they fill out ballots on election day. Yet the Commission on Elections nearly paid P380 for each of the so-called ballot secrecy folders. The amount was reportedly what the Comelec believed had been recommended by its Bids and Awards Committee, with the deal to supply 1.8 million ballot secrecy folders awarded through negotiated contract to OTC Paper Supply.

Only the vigilance of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting stopped the overpriced deal. A letter from the PPCRV alerted the Comelec, whose officials then established that the recommended price per folder was only P3.80. The contract, the Comelec emphasized, had not yet been signed and no purchase order had been made as of yesterday. That should be good news for taxpayers. Juan de la Cruz is still saddled with a tab of some P1.2 billion that the Comelec, under Benjamin Abalos, had paid to the Mega Pacific consortium, which won the original poll automation contract. Mega Pacific has refused to return the full payment or take back nearly 2,000 vote counting machines and software. 

Although the Comelec has been purging its ranks of officials and personnel whose unscrupulous activities have eroded public trust in the poll body, full cleansing is unlikely to be accomplished overnight. Where there’s big money to be made, there is always the possibility of public servants engaging in crooked activities. But there must also be enough people in the Comelec who want to restore public trust in the poll body after the scandals of the past years.

Comelec officials are still investigating whether someone had tried to pull a fast one on the poll body in the case of the ballot secrecy folders. This is one potential overprice that was aborted. Are there similar deals being cooked up or that have been finalized and implemented? The Comelec must increase its vigilance and try to find out.