MANILA, Philippines -- Malacañang on Thursday denied that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had close ties with the Filipino firm that placed the country’s election automation in doubt when it suddenly withdrew from a consortium that won in the bidding for the P7.2-billion contract.

Earlier, there were reports about the ties of Arroyo and her husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, to Total Information Management Corp. (TIM). An encounter between the Arroyos, when the President was still a senator and Jose Mari Antuñez, president of the TIM, in an event was also mentioned.

But the Palace was quick to say there were no such ties. “It doesn't follow,” deputy presidential spokesman Anthony Golez said when asked in a briefing if the President had close ties with Jose Mari Antuñez of TIM, “because the President attend to thousands of ribbon-cutting activities in this country.”

Antuñez has admitted that in 1994, then Senator Gloria Arroyo, and her husband attended the ribbon-cutting of TIM's business recovery service center as special guests.

Golez, however, welcomed lawmakers' plan to open an inquiry into the poll automation contract, including TIM's ties with the Aboitiz family, which is close to the Arroyo family.

“That's good because we will find out that all these allegations of critics are malicious,” he said, referring to insinuations that Malacañang could have influenced TIM to pull out of its partnership with Smartmatic International Corp. to sabotage the 2010 poll automation.