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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider Comelec recommends lease of 97K VCMs; here's what Imee has to say

Comelec recommends lease of 97K VCMs; here's what Imee has to say

Published May 31, 2022 02:19 pm

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is recommending the lease of 97,000 new vote counting machines (VCMs) to replace the 13-year-old VCMs that malfunctioned in the May 9, 2022 national and local elections.

The retirement of the 97,000 VCMs and the lease of new ones at P70,000 each would cost the government some P6.79 billion ‘’but we do not have that much (money) burning in our pockets,’’ Senator Imee Marcos said Tuesday, May 31 during a Senate Electoral Reforms Committee hearing.

Since the incoming Marcos administration is expected to financial difficulties, Marcos advised that the lease of the VCMs would be done in phases.

The lady lawmaker then asked if the replacement of the aging VCMs should be complete or partial.

At present, the national government has more than P12 trillion in debt, the increase of which was reportedly caused principally by debts to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.

Saidamen Pangarungan, Comelec chairman, said the machines to be leased would be used for the 2025 local and national elections.

Marcos said the scheduled December 5 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections would be done manually.

Comelec Commissioner George Erwin Garcia said leasing the VCMs is the best option.

But he raised ‘’serious concern’’ on the inter-operability issue should the VCMs to be leased through bidding from another bidder would have technical problems when interfaced with the current Smartmatic-produced VCMs.

They cited an incident in 1997 when two different VCM providers did not talk to each other.

At the start of her committee hearing, Marcos said the May 9 elections was the quickest and fastest ever in Philippine election history.

Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) Undersecretary Maria Victoria Castro testified that WiFi connections in the county has improved a lot and that DICT conducted stress tests, re-tested and prepared cybercrime measures.

She said DICT ‘’blocked some attempts".

Comelec officials stressed that coming up with speed and credence in the past elections did not happen overnight.

They said tests were started way back in December and field-tested connectivity and that the transmission rate of Smartmatic, Comelec provider, increased.

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