Brillantes inks Smartmatic deal, retires

By: Jerome Aning, Jerry E. Esplanada, Jocelyn R. Uy - 10 years ago

3 FOR THE ROAD Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes Jr. (center) attends flag ceremony on Monday outside the Comelec office. He is flanked by Commissioners Lucenito Tagle (left) and Elias Yusoph (right). NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

MANILA, Philippines–It’s a done and expanded deal.

The signing of the expanded contract came before a poll watchdog could ask the Supreme Court to stop the Commission on Elections (Comelec) from signing a diagnostics contract with Smartmatic Corp.

Three days before his retirement, Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes Jr. signed the P268.8-million contract with Smartmatic to repair 82,000 voting machines for the 2016 balloting despite criticisms from various sectors.

Brillantes and Commissioners Lucenito Tagle and Elias Yusoph retired on Monday from the election body after completing their respective terms of office.

Expanded contract

In a farewell speech, Brillantes announced that the Comelec had decided to expand the contract, covering not only diagnostics but “all kinds of repair” and the complete replacement of broken precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines.

“Last Jan. 30, Friday, I signed the contract with Smartmatic despite all the criticisms … [and] despite all of the attacks,” Brillantes told Comelec employees during the flag ceremony at the commission’s headquarters in Intramuros, Manila.

In signing the deal, the Comelec ignored calls by several Catholic bishops and poll watchdog groups to delay action on the matter until after Brillantes, Yusoph and Tagle have retired to allow the incoming commissioners to take part in the decision-making.

On Jan. 21, 25 bishops and diocesan administrators wrote the Comelec, urging the commissioners to revoke the supposed “holiday rush” resolution awarding the big contract to Smartmatic.

The Comelec pushed through with the contract with the Venezuelan firm “against all odds” as it believed that it was the right choice, Brillantes said.

“We really fought for the provisions of the contract and I am sure that the four commissioners whom we are going to leave here can work it out to ensure that no problems will arise from now until the 2016 elections,” said the 75-year-old veteran election lawyer.

Scope of contract

In an interview with reporters following the flag ceremony, Brillantes explained that the scope of the contract was not only limited to Smartmatic’s diagnostic services.

“It will cover not only minor repairs. But it will also cover all forms of repairs… It will also involve the replacement of destroyed machines, which was not included in the original proposal offered to us by Smartmatic,” he said.

Impunity

Former Comelec Commissioner Augusto Lagman on Monday said he “can’t think of anything more outrageous than this.”

“On his last day in office and amidst all the objections to the Comelec-Smartmatic deal… Think of impunity,” he told the Inquirer.

Asked if he had any message to Brillantes, his former schoolmate at San Beda College in Manila, Lagman said: “Tell him that’s not what our school taught us.”

Former National Treasurer Leonor Briones urged Brillantes to “reconsider his actions.” Contacted by phone, she noted “usually government officials retire with the highest honors.”

Briones asked lawyers of poll watchdog groups to “look into possible violations of the law on midnight appointments and entering into contracts” with private firms.

“Aside from ethical considerations, this one has legal issues and possible violations of the law that should be looked into by poll watchdog and other concerned groups,” she added.

For his part, retired Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz called the Comelec-Smartmatic contract a “dubious deal.”

The poll watchdog group Citizens for Clean and Credible Elections (C3E) said Brillantes, “apparently unmindful of the mounting protests and legal challenges to the Comelec decision, is leaving behind a legacy of squandering people’s money in favor of a shady and questionable technology reseller masquerading as an information technology conglomerate.”

Petition in high court

In a petition for certioari and prohibition, the Automated Election Systems (AES) Watch asked the Supreme Court to stop Comelec from directly contracting or dealing with Smartmatic and its officials, saying the deal violated the rules on government procurement.

The petitioners were Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo; former Comelec Commissioner Augusto Lagman; computer scientists and information technology experts Pablo Manalastas Jr., Leo Querubin and Jaime Caro; Center for People Empowerment in Governance executive director Evita Jimenez; Migrante International founding president Concepcion Bragas-Regalado; lawyer Gregorio Fabros of Kontra Daya; Philippine National IT Standards Foundation president Ma. Corazon Akol; systems analyst Hector Barrios; and Ateneo de Manila University mathematics professor Felix Muga II.

Named respondents in the suit were the Comelec, represented by acting Chair Christian Robert Lim, and Smartmatic, represented by its president, Cesar Flores.

Problems with machines

The petitioners told the high court that Comelec committed grave abuse of discretion in continuing to deal with Smartmatic following findings by the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on the AES regarding problems with the PCOS machines that arose in the 2010 and 2013 polls.

Among these were the failure and malfunction of PCOS machines; disabling of the minimum security features before the elections; lack of source code review by interested parties; lack of digital signatures; voting, counting, canvassing/consolidation and transmission problems; noncrediting, misreading of votes or inaccuracy of results; and party-list election problems.

Relatively new group

The departure of the three senior officials will leave behind a relatively new group of commissioners—Arthur Lim, Luie Guia and Al Parreño.

Commissioner Christian Robert Lim, being the senior in the en banc, has been appointed acting chair starting Tuesday until President Aquino makes an official appointment probably in March after Congress has adjourned.

Misled

Reacting to the bishops’ letter last week, Brillantes said the prelates were misled by groups, particularly C3E, into believing that the election body had erred in tapping Smartmatic for the repair of the PCOS machines.

Brillantes said that the bishops were not properly informed that the contract had not yet been signed at the time and was still under negotiation.

‘Farewell gift’

C3E has called on the Senate blue ribbon committee and the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee to look into allegations that top Comelec officials got millions of pesos in “farewell gift” from Smartmatic in exchange for the contracts to revamp the PCOS machines for the 2016 elections.

“We will fight for our decision because it is right. We will not give the project to another firm because we believe that it should be given to Smartmatic,” Brillantes said on Monday.

He also challenged all those who would think otherwise to take it to the Supreme Court. “I dare those who say that this contract is not right, which I already signed, to bring it up to the highest court of this land and I will fight for it up to the end,” he said.

He maintained that the three of them did not violate anything in signing the contract since they were still mandated to do their duties until their retirement took effect. Brillantes said his term officially ended midnight of Feb. 2.

Brillantes was appointed by President Aquino in January 2011 to serve the unfinished term of his predecessor, former Comelec Chair Jose Melo. He oversaw the second automated balloting in the country in 2013.

Brillantes was an election lawyer before his appointment in government, having defended controversial and powerful politicians in the country, including the late Fernando Poe Jr. and Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. and deposed President Joseph Estrada, who is now mayor of Manila.

Tagle and Yusoph were the last two appointees of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. A retired Court of Appeals justice, Tagle joined the Comelec in July 2008.

Yusoph served as a provincial prosecutor in Marawi City before he was designated election commissioner in March 2009.

Comelec employees on Monday gave Brillantes, Tagle and Yusoph plaques of appreciation and serenaded them with the 1967 classic, “Can’t Take My Eyes off You.”