Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chair Andres Bautista on Friday said the use of hybrid voting system or the precinct automatic tallying system (Patas)—the third option being eyed by the poll body—is definitely out in next year’s presidential elections.
Between the two remaining poll system options, the refurbishment of the old precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines is the Comelec’s priority, Bautista told reporters in an interview at the Diamond Hotel in Manila.
“We were considering three options. But on Friday, during the House hearing, the Comelec presented our position and from the looks of it, the hybrid is still raw although it has some promising features,” Bautista said. “Now we’re looking at two options—the refurbishment of PCOS machines and the lease of new optical mark readers (OMR).”
During the press briefing last Tuesday, Bautista said the Comelec is considering making a second adjustment in the approved budget for the refurbishment of the 81,896 PCOS machines after a failure of bidding was declared during the first round of public bidding.
“The en banc is looking at ways by which we can revive the bidding and we are considering increasing the approved budget of the contract (ABC)…but no decision has been made yet,” Bautista told reporters.
In particular, he said the poll body will take into consideration the inputs of several potential service providers, including the three firms—Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) Corp., Indra Sistemas S.A. and Vertex Business Applications Inc.—that purchased the bid documents for the first round of bidding, during a nonbinding conference they organized last Monday.
“We got inputs there…there were those who said that the ABC was too low,” said Bautista. “We will review the budget internally.”
However, Bautista also did not discount the possibility that the present budget of P2,074,088,878 will be retained.
Last week, the Comelec-Special Bids and Awards Committee (SBAC) 2 declared a failure of bidding for the refurbishment project of the old PCOS units after none of the three firms that purchased bid documents submitted bid proposals.
Smartmatic-TIM and Vertex both cited the sudden reduction of the budget by P805,911,121 from the original amount of P2,880,000,000 as their reason for backing out.
The decrease in the budget, according to the SBAC 2, was prompted by the removal of one component of the project, which is for the replacement of unrepairable PCOS units with new machines.
Meanwhile, Bautista said the poll body is not ruling out the possibility of using the hybrid system in the country but not during the May 2016 national and local polls.
“We’re still open to use the system in the future elections. We should remember that we’re short of time. If we are talking about 2016, it’s too late,” said Bautista.
Under the Patas, the voting and counting will be done manually, while the transmission and canvassing of ballots will be automated.
Presenting the findings to the House suffrage committee, Comelec Commissioner Christian Robert Lim said the report recommended not to use Patas after the June 27 demonstration in Bacoor, Cavite province, for four reasons:
First, “Patas will cost more than the OMR system whether we refurbish or not,” he said.
Second, “Patas will require the amendment of existing laws or the creation of new laws to allow it,” Lim said.
Third, “the Patas’ manual procedure is time-consuming, taxing and prone to human error.”
And fourth, “Patas software still needs to be developed and this will require more than one year,” he said.