MANILA, Philippines -- Happy times are back for “operators” of “dagdag-bawas” (vote padding-vote shaving) with the looming collapse of the deal between the companies that would provide the machines to automate the May 2010 elections, a lawmaker said on Wednesday.

This developed as Agusan del Sur Representative Rodolfo Plaza said that he would file a resolution in the House of Representatives to investigate the deal between Total Information Management Corp. and Smartmatic International, following the announcement of TIM that it was withdrawing from the partnership.

With the country stuck with manual voting and counting, Bayan Muna partylist Representative Teodoro Casiño said that “political operators who are already experts in manual cheating” would again have their heyday.

At the Ayes and Nays forum in Quezon City, Casiño said partylist groups supported automated election although they had misgivings on its implementation.

“It changes the rules of the game. Ang tingin namin kahit papaano, in one or two elections may learning curve iyan, so iyong mga sindikato sa mandaraya dyan they still have to learn kaya baka maging malinis ang 2010, even the 2013 elections. [In one or two elections, there’s a learning curve so syndicates involved in cheating still have to learn so the 2010 elections can be clean, even the 2013 elections],” he said.

“But without automation, the rules are the same and it’s happy time again for the dagdag-bawas operators and in that game, it’s the highest bidder that really has the advantage,” Casiño added.

Makati Representative Teodoro Locsin said that advocates of the automated election were now "mourning" its death.

"I think those who oppose automation should celebrate but I think it’s misguided celebration," he told reporters in the same forum.

Locsin had exposed that the head of TIM told Smartmatic, its foreign partner, that won the bidding to automate the elections, in jest that it only needed to P500 million so that its problems would go away.

Quezon City Representative Matias Defensor said TIM could not just back out of the deal without making it formal, but added that putting it in writing would give the Comelec reason to file a case in court against the firm.

Comelec chairman Jose Melo has given the two firms until Friday to patch up their differences.