MANILA, Philippines?The Commission on Elections? (Comelec) is running late in its schedule for the automation of elections in 2010.

The Comelec?s bidding committee Monday admitted it would not be able to award the winner for the P11-billion contract on time.

Comelec Special Bids and Awards Committee Chair Ferdinand Rafanan said they expect to announce the winning bidder for the contract to automate the 2010 presidential and national elections by ?the middle of June,? about three weeks behind the original schedule.

Under its original calendar, the Comelec should have announced the winning bidder last week. By the last week of May, the poll agency and the bid winner would have signed the contract and begun preparations for the country?s first-ever computerized polls.

Rafanan blamed the delay on the appeals for reconsideration filed by bidders.

When the Comelec drafted its timeline for the activities leading to the May 10 polls, it failed to take into account the days that would be spent acting on motions for reconsideration, the poll official said.

?Definitely, we are behind schedule,? Rafanan said.

To hasten the bidding procedures, Rafanan directed the two remaining bidders?the consortia of Smartmatic International and Total Information Management Corp. and the AMA Group of Holdings Inc. and Election Software and Systems?to respond to the remaining issues about their firms.

Rafanan said ?there were questions about lawsuits, documentation, and relations with some companies.? The bidders? answers, he noted, would facilitate the post-qualification screening, he noted.

Because of the delay in the bidding process, the SBAC chair said the Comelec and the eventual winner would have to compress certain activities in the election calendar.

?There will be some kind of speeding up in order to make up for the lost days. It?s not irreversible. It can easily be adjusted. We will have to speed up the production and the customization of these machines,? he said.

The procurement panel started opening the bids submitted by seven companies on May 4. As the process progressed and as the SBAC disqualified one bidder after another, the companies tried to rejoin the bidding by filing appeals.

In the third week of the bidding process, only two companies out of seven were left standing.