Ambiguous

Next year’s elections will probably be a bore. It is, after all, a midterm exercise where the administration controls a supermajority in Congress and basks in comparatively high approval ratings.

There is no well-formed political opposition. The Liberal Party (LP), which is trying hard to claim the opposition mantle, appears to have been overrun by the leftist groups.

Without a clear bill of particulars over what exactly it opposes and what it supports, and without any visible effort to organize beyond its echo chambers, this political grouping appears headed for the same “Otso Diretso” debacle it suffered in 2019.

Long before the last presidential elections, I recall receiving a text from Kiko Pangilinan saying that the party was reorganizing its base and preparing for the crucial elections. We saw what happened. The eventual standard-bearer chose pink over yellow as her campaign colors: a telling rejection of the LP’s electoral capacity.

There are, it seems, only two remaining elements of suspense regarding the May 2025 election.

The first element is whether the ruling coalition will field a single slate or two, considering the sheer number of candidates wanting to run. In addition to incumbents who will be seeking reelection, as many as six former senators are said to be planning a return.

Fielding two slates will accommodate all the administration’s friends. But it will force voters to choose between two factions of the same ruling majority.

The second element is whether the freshly-signed contractor for the counting technology to be used next year will deliver as promised. The equipment provided by this technology firm delivered spotty performances in last December’s elections in the Congo and Iraq. The contract to supply our next-generation automated process is the largest ever signed anywhere.

Since the Comelec chairman, no less, accepted an invitation early on from Miru Systems to visit their plant in South Korea, everyone sort of assumed a fair-haired bidder has been chosen. When the entire Commission agreed with the chairman that the usual technology provider Smartmatic be excluded from the bidding without any procedure, the stage was set for a single-bidder exercise.

This is not, everyone will agree, the best way to award an P18-billion contract with many complex technical specs. But it is what happened. The contract has been sealed – for better or for worse.

While the Comelec loudly advertised that the bidding for the automated elections technology would be the most competitive ever, and the most unambiguous, the process did not turn out that way. Only one bidder, Miru Systems, materialized. But the contract was not awarded outright.

Numerous flaws in the technology it offered prevented Miru Systems from grabbing the contract right away. Even as other potential bidders asked for more time before a second round of bidding was held to enable them to compete, the Comelec chair scheduled the second pass for Jan. 8 – with the singular bidder.

Miru Systems advanced to the qualification phase. Here the process becomes even more ambiguous. The rigorous Pass or Fail standard long maintained for technology suppliers appears to have been relaxed.

Citizen groups such as Democracy Watch asked Comelec to explain a number of irregularities observed during the qualification process. Among these: the presence of cameras on top of the voting machine and facing the voter (potentially compromising ballot secrecy); the use of a non-integrated system and the non-compliant use of Excel and Word programs to process election-related data.

During the demonstration process using a “prototype,” ballots considered tampered in the previous technology were accepted as valid. These are ballots with extra markings, crumpled paper and torn forms. This was a very forgiving machine, indeed.

Deep into this problematic process, the Comelec left those questions unanswered.

Most tellingly, in violation of the Comelec’s own terms of reference and the provisions of the law governing automated elections, the technology offered by Miru Systems has no demonstrated capability through use in a previous electoral exercise.

The prototype used in the demonstration combines an electronic voting machine and an optical scanner in one bundle. The previous technology used separate machines for those two distinct functions.

Furthermore, this untested bundle does not exist in any quantity. The machines have yet to be manufactured by Miru Systems – presumably after initial proceeds from the new contract are collected. Our Procurement Law frowns on such practice.

We might have just agreed to purchase The Emperor’s New Clothes by agreeing to procure unseen technology. Such is the confidence of the Comelec in its newfound technology partner. Some might even describe this a leap of faith.

Yet there seemed to be a certain sense of inevitability accompanying the award of this humongous contract. The Comelec proceeded with a certain awe of its own power as a constitutional body – and a certain contempt for the rules governing the use of taxpayer money.

It might also be that there was no significant opposition through the length of this abbreviated bidding process. No one demanded a more rigorous adherence to the letter and spirit of the law governing automated elections. This is one of the symptoms of a political condition marked by the absence of meaningful opposition.

In every election we have held, there has always been constant allegations of cheating. Such allegations erode the legitimacy of those who are eventually elected to wield power.

For our own sake, we hope Miru’s counting system performs as advertised.