Comelec reverses ruling disqualifying Smartmatic
MANILA, Philippines—The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has granted Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) Corp.’s appeal over its disqualification from the first round of bidding for the lease of voting machines to be used in the 2016 presidential polls.
In an eight-page decision, the Comelec en banc reversed the decision of the poll agency’s Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) and declared Smartmatic-TIM’s bid for the lease of the election management system and 23,000 precinct-based optical mark reader (OMR) machines as “complete and responsive.”
“The commission hereby declares that the financial proposal submitted by the Smartmatic-TIM during the second stage of the bidding for the election management system and OMR is complete and responsive,” said the decision promulgated on March 26.
‘Nonresponsive’ bid
The BAC disqualified Smartmatic-TIM last Feb. 25 for submitting a “nonresponsive” bid that featured several items left without price offers in their financial proposals.
Smartmatic-TIM had proposed P1,724,712,698.24 for the lease of the OMR machines, and another P505,086,506.40 for the “Option to Purchase” for the project with an approved budget of P2,503,518,000.
Smartmatic-TIM filed a motion for reconsideration but it was also denied by Comelec-BAC, prompting the election technology provider to file a protest before the commission en banc.
No logic
“A review of the Overall Summary submitted by the Smartmatic-TIM for the OMR project shows that indeed there are dashes, instead of zeroes, in the required items indicated in the Overall Summary of its financial proposals. The presence of dashes in said summary, however, is not sufficient ground to disqualify the Smartmatic-TIM because aside from the Overall Summary, the Financial Proposal Breakdown should also be considered in determining whether or not a financial proposal is complete and responsive,” said the Comelec en banc in its decision.
It pointed out that the Financial Proposal Breakdown of Smartmatic-TIM’s bid clearly indicate “P0.00” in the costing of “Risk Management Contingency Planning,” “Change Management” and “Quality Control and Assurance,” and that it corresponds to the dashes indicated in the Overall Summary.
