MANILA, Philippines -- The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines is pleased that Smartmatic and Total Information Management have come to an agreement as it shows that the country’s first fully automated elections will push through in 2010.

“We are happy with the development,” CBCP media director Msgr. Pedro Quitorio was quoted by the CBCP’s news website as saying.

Quitorio indicated that the CBCP now wants the Commission on Elections to make up for lost time in ensuring the integrity of the national and local elections next year after a disagreement between the partners in a joint venture company that won the automation contract threatened to scuttle the project.

“How we wish that, with the very little time left, those concerned will now start working double time for a clean election, which is what everybody is expecting with full automation,” Quitorio said.

The CBCP is a steadfast advocate of poll automation, seeing it as one of the reforms needed to make the country’s elections more credible.

In a pastoral statement on July 8, 2007, the CBCP called for the modernization of the country’s elections in time for the presidential, senatorial, congressional and local elections in 2010.

“Modernization of the electoral system in time for the 2010 presidential election. There should be broad-based and transparent discussions on what type of poll automation is appropriate and how it is to be piloted and implemented,” the CBCP said in the pastoral statement.