Malacañang’s Cha-cha push seen in poll automation budget delay

January 7, 2009

Malacañang’s apparent defiance to calls on coming up with a supplemental budget for poll automation could likely be related to purported plans to push Charter change (Cha-cha) this year.

Sen. Richard Gordon yesterday made public his assertion on the matter as he expressed serious doubts over the Executive’s and Commission on Elections (Comelec) failure to submit a supplemental budget to prepare the country for the full automation of the electoral system.

“Those are the signs. That will be tragic for our country,” the author of the law providing for the automated election system also known as Republic Act 9369 told reporters as he maintained that Malacañang’s lukewarm response in putting in place poll computerization could be related to moves for Cha-cha to finally take off.

“Malacañang must submit the budget of the Comelec. It hasn’t done so. Maybe they’re waiting for the Comelec to come out with the specifics on that figures, whatever it is.

“(But) I think really, the ball is on the court of President Arroyo, Malacañang to release the budget for automated elections. The more she does it, the more people will think that she’s trying to obviate the elections because of Cha-cha,” he stressed.

The senator said speculations are rife that the reason the called supplemental budget is not being submitted to Congress is allegedly due to continued optimism of the administration to see Cha-cha in place.

“There are even talks that there is indeed a plan to extend the term of Mrs. Arroyo. I will advise the people around the President to disabuse their minds about this. Filipinos will not accept that,” Gordon stressed.

The lawmaker explained that poll preparation expenses will have to be covered a supplemental budget as this is not included in the regular appropriation.

Poll computerization is said to cost the government between P11 billion and P13 billion.

“It’s been very, very clear that the President has said this is one of her priorities every State of the Nation Address, in each Sona. In fact, all the presidents of the Philippines have said, made promises of clean elections. The priorities should really be computerized elections, so we can prevent the so-called wholesale cheating,” Gordon said.

“I think it’s time that the President asserts her legacy especially because it’s been a very tempestuous presidency for her,” he added.

Another senator, for her part, noted that a computerized election system that cannot guard against poll fraud is next to useless.

Sen. Loren Legarda was reacting to Comelec Chairman Jose Melo’s admission that the Optical Mark Reader (OMR) technology which the Comelec is proposing to use in the 2010 national elections would not be able to flush out double or multiple registrants.

“In short, flying voters will have a field day running rings around this system for which the Comelec had asked for P13.9 billion in supplemental budget,” she stressed.

“We cannot have a computerized poll system that can count votes, but which cannot determine whether the votes being counted are authentic or fraudulent,” she noted.

Melo was quoted as saying the system would need cross-matching machines that could identify voters with double and multiple registrations.

But the P13.9-billion supplemental budget being sought for by the Comelec for the computerization of the 2010 elections apparently would not include funds for the said cross-matching machines.

Legarda said without the capability to weed out bogus votes, the system the Comelec wants to use would result in “garbage in, garbage out.”

She reiterated that the main reason of employing a computerized poll system is to guard against poll fraud.

The Comelec had chosen the OMR system, although it tested another technology, the direct recording electronic system or DRE, which not only counts votes faster than OMR but also determines the identity of voters through biometrics, thus weeding out double registrants.

Melo said OMR is cheaper than DRE hence the choice made by the Comelec.

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