Comelec sets 2 new biddings
MANILA, Philippines–The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Tuesday said it will conduct parallel public biddings for the refurbishment of the old precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines and for the lease of 100,000 new optical mark reader (OMR) voting units.
“The commission en banc decided that we are going to go through two tracks which will both require a public bidding. One track we will bid out for the refurbishing, upgrade of the existing PCOS machines. The other track we are looking at is purchasing about 100,000 new machines,” newly appointed Comelec Chair Andres Bautista told a press briefing after attending his first commission en banc meeting.
But even as the Comelec would be conducting parallel biddings for the two options being considered for the 2016 elections, Bautista said they would be holding consultations with other stakeholders regarding the automated election system.
“Because of time constraints, we don’t want to lose options, that’s why we’re pursuing parallel biddings. But we’re consulting with the Congress, with the executive branch, civil society groups, other stakeholders who are pushing for clean, honest and credible elections,” he said.
“We are open to other suggestions, to other opinions, but we want to emphasize that this is a time-bound exercise. May 9, 2016, we will have elections on that day, you can’t change that so we need to make a decision at some point. That’s why we are committed to increasing transparency,” Bautista added.
“It’s possible that both biddings will succeed, it’s possible both will fail, it’s possible one will succeed and one fails. After the result, we will assess and decide our next step. Hopefully, both will succeed, then we can choose which is the better option,” he said.
Based on the agreed timeline, the Comelec will start with both public biddings immediately, Bautista said.
Decision by July
He said the poll body expects to come up with a decision on which of the two options it will ultimately choose by July, or just weeks before they expect to award the contract to the winning bidder.
Bautista said he does not believe prospective bidders would be discouraged by the seeming uncertainty as the bidders are not prohibited from participating in both biddings and will be well informed of the limitations of the project.
“It will be up to them if they will be willing to take the risk,” said newly appointed Commissioner Rowena Guanzon.
Even before the appointment of the new Comelec officials, the Comelec en banc had decided to narrow down the poll body’s options to conduct a public bidding either for the refurbishment of the 81,000 PCOS units or for the purchase of additional new voting machines.
If the PCOS machines will be refurbished, it will be reused in the 2016 polls, to be supplemented by 23,000 new OMR machines to be leased by the Comelec.
On the other hand, if the Comelec opts to buy new machines, the latter will be combined with the 23,000 OMR machines, the bidding for which has already been completed by the bids and awards committee (BAC).
Comelec Commissioner Christian Lim explained that they decided to bid out the refurbishment of the PCOS units because the poll body’s own IT department would only be able to perform diagnostics on the voting machines, while the job entails the replacement of parts, batteries, rubber rollers, as well as the upgrade of the functionality of the mother board.
He said the poll body has enough funds from its savings of P14.5 billion.
