MANILA, Philippines?Someone tried to pull a fast one with a P700-million contract while everyone was busy preparing for the May 10 automated elections.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) nearly bought 1.8 million ballot secrecy folders at P380 each, but decided to recall the purchase from OTC Paper Supply, calling it ?extravagant.?

Comelec Chair Jose Melo himself had refused to sign the purchase order.

The Comelec en banc issued a resolution Monday taking back its decision to award the contract to OTC Paper Supply.

?It was also discovered after redeliberation that the purchase price of P380 per ballot secrecy folder is extravagant beyond the ordinary needs of the Commission,? Resolution No. 8814 stated.

While the decision to award the contract had been made, the actual contract has not yet been signed.

The ballot secrecy folders would be used by voters to shield their ballots from prying eyes while they make their choices. A ballot only costs P2.50 each.

Under the design earlier approved by the Comelec, the folder would be 28 inches long, 9.5 inches wide and colored royal blue. It would have an expandable spine and would be made of a polypropylene sheet, a kind of plastic that is used to make food containers, toothbrushes and surgical fabrics.

A new type of folder was needed because with the automated elections, the ballots would be 25 inches long since they would contain the names of all the candidates.

The en banc also gave other reasons for its decision to recall its award?the 1.815 million folders that the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) recommended to be purchased exceeded the actual number that would be used on election day.

Gold mine

On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. in a radio interview urged Melo to investigate personnel who were ?treating Comelec funds like a gold mine.?

Pimentel not only referred to the folders that at P380 a piece was so expensive it could probably be ?gold-plated? but also to a report that the Comelec had paid P92 million to transport ballots from the National Printing Office (NPO) to the Philpost office for safekeeping before being sent out to the provinces.

This meant that the Comelec spent more than P1,000 per ream of ballots to transport the ballot from Quezon City to Tondo, he said.

Pimentel said that he heard the NPO chief was ?surprised? at the cost and reported it to the Comelec.

Incomplete staff work

?Some people are treating Comelec funds like a gold mine over which they have a franchise,? he said. ?This is so shocking to the conscience of ordinary people because after all the Comelec is the repository of the will of the people during election time.?

The Comelec en banc said the BAC recommendation was a product of ?incomplete staff work? because the BAC multiplied the 22 ballot secrecy folders per precinct with 82,500 clustered precincts. There are only 76,340 clustered precincts.

It also stated that it had relied heavily on the recommendations of the BAC when it initially approved the awarding of the contract to OTC Paper Supply for the delivery of 1.815 million ballot secrecy folders.

?The Commission relying heavily on the regularity of the procedure conducted by the Bids and Awards Committee, approved the said recommendation.?

Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said that an investigation into the purchase started two weeks ago.

?There is an investigation being done not just on the award, but on those who were involved. We want to find out how a situation like this came to be,? Jimenez told reporters.

Everyone under pressure

Jimenez also declined to name the Comelec officials being investigated, and said the poll body wants to give them the benefit of the doubt.

?You have to understand, everyone is under tremendous pressure now. We?re very close to the election. This is a very, very urgent purchase, very necessary purchase, so somewhere along the line maybe someone made a mistake. So we?re looking at that, we?re investigating that,? he said.

The contract was a negotiated one because the requirements for the ballot secrecy folder were specific, according to Jimenez.

?As far as the current design, the design is unique. No one else actually makes stuff like that. So under the procurement rules, you have a situation that might justify a recourse to either a negotiated contract or a special form of bidding,? he said.

He added that he was not saying that the ballot secrecy folders required by the Comelec were hard to produce, but that the specifications were unique.

Obviously exorbitant

Documents from the Comelec also showed that in a March 23 memorandum to Melo, Comelec law department director Ferdinand Rafanan told the poll body chair that he was shocked at the ?obviously exorbitant? price of the ballot secrecy folder.

Rafanan said he learned about the purchase from a letter of Arwin Serrano, a member of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting. He also wondered whether there had been an error in the placing of the decimal point in the amount, whether the actual price was P3.80.

A highly placed Comelec official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that the en banc was apparently misled when it approved the procurement of the folders.

The official said the amount of each folder was not spelled out in words. Only the numerical figure was shown, which led commissioners to mistakenly believe that the folder cost P3.80. With a report from Christine O. Avendaño