EVEN as Malacañang described the option to revert to manual elections as “unacceptable,” the poll body on Wednesday started preparations for such a contingency, while awaiting the final resolution of the feud that triggered the split between winning bidder Smartmatic International and its local partner Total Information Management (TIM).

“It all depends on what will happen on Friday. If we go manual, definitely a reshuffling of personnel will be very, very high up on the agenda,” said Commission on Elections (Comelec) spokesman James Jimenez. Time for automation is rather limited at this point, but for manual preparations, “there’s still ample time,” he said in Pilipino. “So we are going to devote our efforts there if Friday turns out to be Black Friday for us,” meaning, the Comelec won’t be able to resolve the feud between the partners who won the bid to conduct the country’s first nationally automated polls.

According to Jimenez, they will put additional safeguards to make it more difficult for people to get away with “shenanigans,” alluding to the notoriety that precedes the fraud-prone, lengthy conduct of manual elections in the country.

The shuffle, he indicated, is necessary to break the perceived familiarity between certain election field officials and candidates or parties.

“We want to make sure that the people in a particular region are confident about the person running their election. We want to make sure that the political candidate themselves have as little to do with the election manager as possible. You have to understand if you are an election manager in a particular location for a long time, it’s inevitable that some sort of familiarity might exist. We want to break that, that’s why we are reorganizing,” he explained.

Comelec Chairman Jose Melo had said last Tuesday that so far, the way he sees it, his people now are more trustworthy than the previous officers.

The May 2004 presidential elections was marred by allegations of widesfraud fraud favoring incmbent President Arroyo—fraud allegedly made possible by the machinations of veteran election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.

Meanwhile, Jimenez said that if Smartmatic and TIM reconcile on Friday, the poll body will demand a clear-cut guarantee on how they would deal with future disagreements. “They have to have a workable plan to resolve future disagreements. A kind of internal grievance for them, a way that can be used by us, objectively, to crack the whip in case. If they walk out again later they will probably forfeit the entire performance bond plus they will be looking at more criminal cases,” he said.

Slow pace for absentee voters

Meanwhile, only 15 percent of the total 115,635 applicants for overseas absentee voting (OAV) have been approved by the Comelec Committee on Overseas Absentee Voting (COAV).

Jimenez admitted that the resident election registration board (RERB) of the COAV had approved a figure that’s a “bit low” for overseas absentee voting—or only 17,061 applicants of the more than 115,000 voters.

Still, the number of OFWs and migrants lining up in the more than 180 Philippine posts and consulates is “very encouraging.”

The United States posted the highest number of registrants with 18,785 followed by China with 12,397, United Arab Emirates with 8,210, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with 6,443, Singapore with 4,843, Canada with 4,514, United Kingdom with 4,216, Japan with 3,909 and Italy with 3,055 applicants.

Comelec Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer, chairman of the COAV, said in a separate interview they expect the numbers of new applicants to increase in the remaining month.

With barely two months left, Ferrer remains optimistic of hitting the 1-million target for overseas absentee voting.

In the 2007 elections, a total of 504,110 registered as overseas absentee voters (OAV).

The OAV registration ends August 31, 2009.

Palace: Manual polls ‘no way’

Saying that reverting to manual elections in 2010 is “unacceptable,” Malacañang warned members of the winning consortium of prosecution “to the full extent of the law” if they fail to honor their agreement with the poll body.

“The government will hold accountable and prosecute to the full extent of the law parties in breach of agreement with Comelec on the matter of poll automation. We continue to trust and support the Comelec and count on them to ensure the prompt settlement of this issue or to provide acceptable alternatives consistent with the law,” Presidential Political Adviser Gabriel Claudio said in a statement.

Businessmen disturbed

The Makati Business Club is “deeply disturbed” by the announcement of the withdrawal of the Filipino entity of the consortium that won the contract to automate the national elections in 2010. That decision “places the fate of the critical 2010 elections under a cloud of uncertainty,” MBC said in a statement.

“Rather than comment further on this development, we would like to study all options still available under the current law and under the new time constraints, including the possibility of combining manual voting and counting with automated transmission and consolidation of the election results,” said the MBC.

Who’s the powerful businessman?

Makati Mayor and United Opposition (UNO) president Jejomar Binay said a “well-connected businessman” who reportedly called up a TIM official last week telling them to “cooperate” so as not to offend “powerful people” holds the key to the decision of TIM to break ties with Smartmatic Inc.

Binay said TIM reportedly decided to scuttle its ties with Smartmatic after the call, which followed reports of an official of the Barbados-based company being seen in a huddle with a “member of a very influential clan” and a “very powerful man” in a coffee shop.

“The story will become clearer once the identity of this influential businessman is revealed,” he said.

Binay said another report that a Smartmatic official was seen in a huddle with “a member of a very influential clan” and a “very powerful man” prior to the call to the TIM official should be probed further.

“These reports show that there are well-connected and powerful interests who are very much interested in the automation project, whether for financial gain or for fraud, or both,” he said. “But they tend to show that the demand for money is only the tip of the iceberg.”

GMA responsible

PRESIDENT Arroyo should take responsibility for resolving the mess gripping the Comelec’s P7- billion poll- automation deal, Sen. Mar Roxas said on Wednesday.

Roxas described the poll-automation project as “a matter of national security and public interest, [so] President Arroyo should quickly call all parties involved to a meeting and find out for herself why and how this important project hit this snag.”

The senator added that if the Arroyo administration is really committed to having clean elections in 2010, the President herself should find a solution to the problem. “Yes, it may be a feud between two partners [in the automation deal], but this has immense implications on our democracy.”

Veep: ‘Absolute necessity’

The credibility of the national elections “is an absolute necessity to attain the political stability needed for our country and our people to move forward beyond 2010. Our people deserve a meaningful exercise of their right of suffrage,” Vice President Noli de Castro said in a statement.

“I believe that pushing through with poll automation, whether full or partial, is more acceptable to the people than reverting to the manual election system for 2010. Failure to push through again with poll automation may be perceived by the people as another scheme to perpetuate election fraud.”

‘Decepticons’ at work?

Calling “government-bashers” as “Decepticons” or the antagonists in the movie Transformers, Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi) Rep. Antonio Alvarez of Palawan said the administration should not be blamed for the imperiled automation of the 2010 elections.

He reacted after some quarters accused the administration of having a hand in the breakup of the consortium.

“Remember it was the Palace which pushed for this project to the point of sending an appropriations bill, despite the tight fiscal situation, to Congress to fund the project,” Alvarez said.

“So why push for a project and get the people all excited, only to scuttle it later and be unfairly blamed for the mess in the process?” he added.

In a separate statement, Party-list Rep. Raymond Palatino of Kabataan urged the Comelec to ensure and enforce reforms in the election process whether poll automation pushes through or not.

Too crucial to be held hostage

At the Palace, Secretary Claudio said “poll automation is too crucial to the country and our democracy to allow it to be held hostage by clashing business interests, let alone greed. Reverting to manual elections is unacceptable.”

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said in his weekly news briefing that Malacañang will not step into the problem, as its resolution lies solely with the Comelec.

While President Arroyo is concerned about the development, she is leaving the matter to the Comelec “because she has confidence that Chairman Melo can handle this,” he said

Ermita also said Malacañang supports the call of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, through Monsignor Pedro Quitorio, to pursue automated elections next year.

Nograles still hoping

Speaker Prospero Nograles expressed confidence that political will would direct the Comelec to implement to the letter the elections-automation law.

“Comelec must find win-win solution to this mess. I believe in the integrity of the Comelec under Chairman Jose Melo, and I have high hopes that he can still save the poll automation program,” said Nograles.

“We can always understand birth pains.  But automation is an inevitable recourse in the process of cleansing our antiquated electoral processes,” Nograles stressed. (S. Fabunan, F. Marasigan, M. Gonzalez, B. Fernandez)