No decision yet on purchase of new PCOS machines

CLARK FREEPORT, Philippines – No decision has been made to buy new precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines for the 2016 elections as the Commission on Elections Advisory Council (CAC) has yet to come out with a recommendation next month.

Election Commissioner Grace Padaca made the clarification in an interview with The STAR during a job fair and special voters’ registration for persons with disabilities (PWD) and Aetas at Clark Freeport yesterday.

“All will depend on the recommendation of the CAC,” she said.

“We have been asking the CAC since last January to submit to us its recommendations, and we expect it this June.”

Padaca said Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. might have been misunderstood when he was quoted recently as having asked Congress to allocate P11 billion to purchase 121,800 new PCOS machines for the 2016 polls.

“Perhaps he was merely answering a follow up question,” she said.

Padaca said the Comelec cannot yet decide on any such purchase without the CAC recommendation.

“Possibilities on what CAC will recommend have put the cost from P6 billion to as much as P60 billion, but we cannot be sure unless the CAC recommendation is out,” she said.

Padaca said the CAC might even recommend the use of both old and new PCOS or only new PCOS.

“If the CAC recommends that the 81,000 PCOS machines used in 2010 and 2013 be used again, then that’s what we will do,” she said. “Of course, this would also require cost since they have to be updated or repaired.”

The CAC was reorganized last December in preparation for the 2016 polls, Padaca said.

To bolster its technical capacity, the CAC, whose members include information technology experts from the Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Education, has taken in new members from the Infocomm Technology Association of the Philippines and and the Philippine Computer Emergency Response Team.

Under the law the CAC is tasked to recommend the most appropriate, secure, applicable and cost-effective technology for the 2016 elections.

OMR to replace PCOS

Brillantes said the Comelec is planning to acquire brand new OMR (optical mark reader) for the coming polls as they are not sure if the PCOS machines stored in an air-conditioned warehouse could deliver 100 percent accuracy.

In OMR, voters could select their candidates by marking the pre-printed ballots which will be fed into the scanning machines for the counting, he added.

Some P10 billion will be needed to acquire the OMR hardware and another P8 billion to buy other paraphernalia and software for the machines, he said.

Speaking at last Monday’s hearing of the House of Representatives committee on suffrage and electoral reforms, Brillantes said the Comelec would have no assurance to again get Smartmatic International Corp. to supply the PCOS machines if it decides to use other automated election technology in the 2016 polls.

“Smartmatic has the patent for PCOS, while the OMR is a generic system,” he said. “Many companies can join in the bidding, many actually want to join in the bidding.”

Brillantes said the PCOS machines would not be wasted as they could still be sold to other countries planning to automate their elections.

“We could sell them. Many countries want to buy the machines,” he said.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III has urged Comelec to “take a look at other possible technologies or systems” and determine their viability as replacement for the PCOS machines for the 2016 elections.

“The Comelec wants to purchase new machines. They are still PCOS, using the same technology,” he said.

“We’d like the Comelec to tell us in a report if it has taken a look at other technologies or systems. If so, what are these technologies? Are they viable? How do they compare with the PCOS in reliability and speed of transmission?”

PPCRV backs new voting machines

Chairman Henrietta de Villa of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) backed yesterday the purchase of new counting machines for the 2016 polls.

Speaking over Catholic Church-run Radio Veritas, De Villa said the acquisition of new voting machines could improve the automated election system.

“If there are enough funds, according to law, then for me it would not be a waste of money, for as long as it this would be beneficiary to the elections,” she said.

De Villa said she would rather have government funds used in the acquisition of new machines than be wasted in scams.

“It would not be a wasted expense. As we can see that money now is being thrown into different kinds of scams,” she said. – With Sheila Crisostomo, Evelyn Macairan