‘Election rigging’ feared with plan to abolish National Printing Office

Fears that the 2004 national elections may be plagued by cheating were aired by the opposition yesterday.

These fears were triggered by what it called a questionable move on the part of the administration to abolish the National Printing Office (NPO), the sole government agency that prints election paraphernalia.

At a press conference, Sen. Teresa Aquino-Oreta said plans to rig the 2004 national elections may be one of the "hidden agenda" items behind Malacañang’s decision to abolish the NPO.

Oreta said she met with NPO employees, who informed her that President Arroyo had already signed an executive order abolishing the NPO, an agency attached to the Office of the Press Secretary (OPS).

Malacañang earlier included the NPO in a list of 14 government agencies it plans to abolish in order to streamline government operations and cut public spending.

Oreta said the "real target" of the government’s streamlining efforts was the NPO and added "that its sinister purpose is to transfer the NPO’s exclusive task of printing election-related materials to a private entity whose officials (will be) beholden to the Palace in time for the 2004 elections."

Should the abolition of the NPO happen, Oreta said, no one would be able to guarantee the "security" of the ballot and other election materials that will be used in the next national polls.

Oreta challenged Malacañang to make public the executive order the President supposedly signed for the abolition of the NPO and 13 other government offices.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said in a statement that abolishing the NPO would be unwise. "Since official ballots are exclusively printed by the NPO for security reasons, its abolition would send alarms that safeguards are being compromised in the printing of ballots," he said.

According to him, workers at the NPO are up in arms against the possible phaseout of their agency and the prospect of being put out of work.

Pimentel added that he sees no reason for the scrapping of the NPO. "If the NPO (were) a non-performing and losing agency, there would be no problem about scrapping it. But it is performing well. It is a revenue-earning agency." The NPO, the senator from Misamis Oriental added, has been remitting P100 million annually in earnings to the government.

Oreta said the government has invested P127 million in the NPO for the purchase of modern printing equipment this year, adding that the NPO’s budget allocation for 2003 is P131 million.

This investment, Pimentel said, has resulted in more job orders from various government agencies that boost the NPO’s income.

Pimentel also urged the Palace to "be transparent" about the planned sale of the NPO amid reports that the agency may be privatized and sold, and that some influential personalities are brokering the sale.

When Congress resumes session on Sept. 24, Oreta, as chairwoman of the Senate committee on public information and mass media, intends to initiate an investigation that will scrutinize the plan to "privatize" the NPO.

According to Oreta, the inclusion of 13 other agencies in the abolition order is merely a smoke-screen to cover up the administration’s "hidden agenda, which is to boost the poll chances of the ruling coalition by 2004 by awarding to a favored government or private entity the crucial job of printing the official ballots and other election-related forms."

Oreta said that during her visit to the sprawling NPO complex along EDSA in Quezon City Wednesday, she was told that OPS sources confirmed that the abolition of the 14 agencies was a "done deal."

If such reports are true, Oreta said, "Mrs. Arroyo would be committing a grave abuse of her presidential powers because she couldn’t put in force any streamlining move without the consent of Congress, more so when such an executive order would entail firing thousands of civil servants and allotting for them (as much as) P20 billion in early-retirement or separation (pay) packages.

The senator from Tarlac added that the statement made by Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye that he would ask the President to reconsider plans to shut the NPO down "virtually confirmed reports of a streamlining plan by Malacañang."

Oreta cautioned the Palace against implementing the streamlining plan using just an executive order. According to her, the authorization for such streamlining or reorganization must come from Congress.

"Malacañang should keep in mind that the power to amend or repeal laws, such as EO 292, belongs exclusively to Congress," she said. "Any move by the Palace to amend or repeal any law constitutes an invalid act because the executive branch will have usurped a function or power that the 1987 Constitution has reserved solely for the legislative branch."