SC asked to nullify awarding of P1.2B PCOS contract to Smartmatic

The Supreme Court. INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—An election watchdog asked the Supreme Court on Monday to nullify the awarding of a P1.2-billion contract for the repair of 80,000 vote counting machines to Smartmatic-Total Information Management Corp. (Smartmatic-TIM) for lack of public bidding.

The Automated Election System Watch (AES Watch) on Monday said Commission on Elections (Comelec) Resolution No. 9922 awarding the contract for diagnostics, repair and refurbishment of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines to Smartmatic should be nullified for violation of the Constitution and the Procurement Law.

Incidentally, the petition was filed on the day of Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr.’s retirement.

Petitioners include Bishop Broderick Pabillo, DD, CBCP public affairs; Pablo Manalastas, computer science faculty of Ateneo de Manila University and the University of the Philippines; Leo Querubin, president, Philippine Computer Society; former Comelec Commissioner Augusto Lagman; Concepcion Bragas-Regalado, founding president of Migrante International; Jaime Caro of the UP Department of Computer Science; Marikol Akol, co-organizer of TransparentElections.org.ph and Evita Jimenez, executive director, Center for People Empowerment in Governance(CenPEG).

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