A Brief History Of Poll Automation In The Philippines

(condensed from the website Action for Economic Reforms )

Automated elections had been generally held as an ideal development in Philippine politics, after having experienced successive elections since 1987 plagued by violence, poll fraud and bitterly divisive electoral protests.

But in the months leading to its implementation in 2010, we have witnessed members of various sectors express their opposition to automating the elections.  But unlike in the past, Automated Elections this year has been freed from legal encumbrances that stopped it in the past.

MODEX

The long, twisted path towards automated elections began with "Operation MODEX" (Modernization and Excellence) in 1992. MODEX aimed to modernize the electoral process from voting to proclamation, systematize the method of registration, clean up and update the list of voters, and provide continuing election education to the public. Unfortunately, MODEX was stricken heavy blows that crippled its implementation.*

Then came the passage of Republic Act 8189 or "The Voter's Registration Act of 1996".  This law provided for a new general registration of voters in 1997, adopted a system of continuing registration thereafter, mandated the creation and computerization of a permanent list of voters, and authorized the issuance of identification cards to registered voters.  RA 8189 required the  implementation of the Voter's Registration and Identification System Project (VRIS) to computerize and clean up the list of voters in time for the 2004 elections.

PHOTOKINA

In 1999, the supply of the information technology requirements for the VRIS was bid out. Photokina Marketing Corporation (PHOTOKINA), with a bid amount of 6.588 billion pesos, was declared the winning bidder and given the notice of award in September 2000. Pending the formal execution of the contract, then COMELEC Chairman Harriet O. Demetriou expressed objections to the contract. Succeeding Chairman Alfredo L. Benipayo went one step further, announcing the scrapping of the VRIS with a view to replacing it with a new program. It was at this point that PHOTOKINA sought the intervention of a Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) to compel the formal execution of the contract, which in turn granted PHOTOKINA's prayer for a writ of preliminary mandatory injunction. This was questioned by Chairman Benipayo and Commissioners Resurreccion Borra and Florentino Tuason, Jr. before the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court, aside from ruling that a petition for mandamus was not a proper remedy to enforce the bid award, proceeded to rule on the substantive issues of the case. It declared the proposed contract void and not binding upon the COMELEC on grounds that the bid award violated Constitutional and statutory provisions requiring government agencies to limit their expenditures within the appropriations made by law for the fiscal year. In the PHOTOKINA case, the bid award of P6.588 billion was way above the P1 billion appropriated by Congress for the project.

With the PHOTOKINA contract falling through, the COMELEC in 2003 instead implemented the Voters' Validation Project, using Data Capture equipment to encode the voter's photo, signature, fingerprints and other data. Information technology (IT) professional Gus Lagman criticized this subsequent project as a "big waste of taxpayer money" because of, among others, the projected low voters' participation in re-registration. The COMELEC has yet to fully account for the impact of the project on the voters list.

MEGA-PACIFIC

After several limited pilot tests, the COMELEC geared up for full automation in the 2004 elections. The project found legal basis in Republic Act 8436 (Election Modernization Act) passed into law in December 1997. In January 2003, along with the registration/validation of voters' project and electronic transmission of election results, the COMELEC invited bidders for the supply of equipment required for automated counting and consolidation of votes. The COMELEC awarded the contract for automated counting and consolidation of votes to Mega Pacific Consortium in April 2003.

In January 2004, less than four months from election day, came the bombshell: The Supreme Court declared the automation contract void. The Supreme Court made the finding that: The contract was awarded to Mega Pacific Consortium, an entity that did not participate in the bidding; the actual contract was signed by Mega Pacific eSolutions, Inc., a company that joined the bidding but had not met the eligibility requirements; and the computer hardware and software failed to pass performance standards at the time of the award.

The law on contracts states that void contracts have no force and effect from the very beginning, as if they had never been entered into, and which cannot be validated by either time or by ratification. If the obligations under the void contract have been performed, the restoration of what has been given is in order.

SMARTMATIC-TIM

Passed on July 24, 2006, the Amended Automated Election Law or Republic Act 9369 gave fresh hopes for automated elections with pilot testing in 2 cities and 2 provinces in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.  This, however, did not push through as the Comelec then headed by Chairman Benjamin Abalos opposed its implementation on the grounds that there was scarcely enough time to bid out the project and implement it.

In 2008, the ARMM elections was automated with barely an incident of violence and with nearly all candidates satisfied with the results of the contest.

In 2009, Smartmatic-TIM won the bid to supply the Philippines with an automated election system.  Temporarily held back by a petition filed by Lawyer Harry Roque, Smartmatic-TIM has been finally given the go ahead to put automated elections on track.