No extensions for Pinoys, all for Smartmatic

FRONTLINE

Ninez Cacho-Olivares

11/01/2009

Poll body officials insist there will be no extensions made on the deadline of registration of voters — this despite the fact that the Philippines — at least the Luzon region, including Metro Manila, was visited by yet another typhoon on the eve of the last day of registration.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) can of course do as it pleases on election matters — unless of course stopped by the high court.

But it does make one wonder: Just what is it that the Comelec wants? For Filipinos to be able to exercise their right of suffrage, or for Filipinos to be excluded from exercising that right, simply because of a deadline imposed by the poll body? In the first place, why can’t continuing registration be done?

Comelec officials claim there can’t be an extension of the registration deadline, since they are also trying to beat the deadline in preparation for the automated polls. Yet in many instances, they bend over backwards for Smartmatic-TIM, the winning consortium for the automated project, even when there are already some delays and irregularities, such as Smartmatic’s change of manufacturer, from Jaltrec, a manufacturing firm in Taiwan, to Quisda, a manufacturing firm based in Shanghai.

That alone is an alteration of the contract provisos, yet Comelec, while admitting that there was indeed an alteration, says this is however, not illegal. What else is Comelec expected to say since it is in a bind again?

The point is, if Comelec, when it comes to Smartmatic’s excuses --- which incidentally are pretty lame, considering the fact that the typhoon in Taiwan that the consortium claimed as the reason for the change of manufacturing firm and change of country, occured some two to three months ago, and no doubt, the Taiwanese firm should have been up and about and humming --- the poll body alters its conditions, yet when it comes down to merely providing an extension for the registrants on the real condition of a typhoon on the eve of the Comelec-imposed deadline, the poll body refuses to budge.

And it is obviously all being done to cater to the needs and excuses of Smartmatic-TIM.

There are more problems facing both the Comelec and Smartmatic — on the delivery, distribution and warehousing of these machines, when they finally get them. The original delivery firm, 2GO, has opted out of the poll automation contract. Neither Smartmatic nor the Comelec has come clean with this problem. And if Tribune did not expose this, there would have been no move on the part of the Comelec and Smartmatic to explain these changes.

To date, they haven’t explained why there has been a change too, in the firm taking charge of this delivery and warehousing.

For 2GO to opt out, there is clearly some kind of internal problem with Smartmatic-TIM. Our sources say it is the inability of the consortium to give 2GO a deposit, since Smartmatic apparently has no funds, as it relies on Comelec to provide the funds.

To date too, neither the poll body nor Smartmatic has made public just which delivery and warehousing firm will be taking over. Nor has the poll body even bothered to make public to IT experts the source code, which under the law, states it should be making public.

Truth is, the Comelec has been so inefficient, if not incompetent, in purging the voters’ list of ineligible, dead and multiple voters, but it doesn’t mind that the list is not purged, which means that fraud will again mark the 2010 polls. But does the Comelec care?

Hardly. All the Comelec seems to want to do is to hold automated polls nationwide even when it is very obviously unprepared for this.

So what’s so great about poll automation when electoral fraud cannot be prevented by the Comelec, when the Comelec deliberately disenfranchises voters by not extending the deadline, and worse, by banking on an unreliable Smartmatic to deliver these machines on time?

Smartmatic, the clueless Comelec heeds, but not the Filipino people.

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