MANILA, Philippines--“If you give me a half A billion pesos, all of these problems will be solved.”

This was what the head of Total Information Management Corp. (TIM) had demanded in jest, but which its partner, Smartmatic International Corp., took seriously, Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin said in an interview with the Inquirer Tuesday.

Locsin recounted the remarks reportedly made by TIM president Jose Mari Antunez to Smartmatic lawyers during recent negotiations at Peninsula Manila Hotel that put in jeopardy their P7.2-billion election automation deal with the Commission on Elections.

“Of course, they took this as a joke but lawyers do not laugh about such things. They took it as a deal breaker. The lawyers thought this was tantamount to extortion,” said Locsin, who based his account on his conversations with Smartmatic’s lawyers.

Although he could not pin down what motivated TIM to play hardball with Smartmatic, Locsin reckoned that “this is an orchestrated move to subvert the elections.”

He said that by making “impossible demands,” Antunez was laying the groundwork for its defense against a lawsuit to be filed by Smartmatic in Singapore.

“P500 million is really big because Smartmatic’s bid is already sagad (the lowest). You are not supposed to do that, it’s illegal. You cannot just give P500 million profit to somebody. Why will you do that?” Locsin said.

“Smartmatic cannot cough up half a billion pesos before they even implemented it because some things could happen. I wouldn’t ask for something like that even if I was greedy.”

Power of the purse demand

Locsin noted that Antunez had suddenly become “unreasonable” shortly after signing a joint venture agreement—60 percent for TIM and 40 percent for Smartmatic—by making all kinds of demands from its foreign partner.

The lawmaker said Smartmatic had given in to almost all of Antunez’s demands, except when he asked that he be given the “power to decide when and how much money to spend.”

Smartmatic balked, according to Locsin, because TIM could decide not to sign the check to pay the creditor-supplier of the equipment, the logistics supplier and the deployment of Comelec personnel.

When Smartmatic rejected this, Antunez made his demand for P500 million up front money.

The Inquirer sought a comment from Antunez, but his spokesperson begged off, saying he would call a press conference within the week.

No formal withdrawal

Curiously, while Antunez has declared his resignation from the joint venture, TIM has yet to make it a formal withdrawal.

“The moment he does (withdraw), he will be charged by the Comelec and Smartmatic,” Locsin said.

He said that while some “liars” in the Senate might want to blame Smartmatic for the mess, “anyone with half a brain would know they did their best and suddenly this guy becomes unreasonable.”

“The opponents of automation who are all masters of manual cheating got to the local partner who wanted Smartmatic to give him up front half a billion and control of the money of the joint venture. Comelec should partner with Smartmatic and go ahead,” Locsin said.

Administration clean

“You can’t link TIM’s withdrawal to the administration because the administration has backed up automation 100 percent. In fact, the opposition in the House and the Senate have opposed automation and in a way they got what they wished for,” Locsin said.

“Maybe he just wanted to extract money but we as lawyers don’t want to think like that so we have to ascribe the influence of the opposition to automation.”