Rizal 2nd district Rep. Dino Tanjuatco (Facebook)

Rizal 2nd district Rep. Dino Tanjuatco has warmed Filipinos about what believes is the very real possibility of a failure of elections--and its chaotic fallout---in May 2025. 

According to Tanjuatco who is a member of the House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms, there remains core issues on the "dubious" P18-billion contract awarded to systems provider Miru Systems Co. Ltd. that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has yet to satisfactorily answer. 

"If the machines fail spectacularly on Election Day in 2025 and the whole country is plunged into chaos, then we only have ourselves to blame for being sidetracked by this circus," Tanjuatco said, 

"Eyes on the ball, Filipinos. The Comelec still has to answer many issues on prototype machines and noncompliant systems. Let us not be distracted by all this noise," he said. 

Tanjuatco has been red-flagging the use of a prototype vote-counting machine (VCM) during the demo back in February, which was not only noncompliant with the AES procurement's terms of reference (TOR), but also disallowed under the Automated Election Law. 

Miru--which has been awarded the biggest poll contract in the country's history--reportedly intends to use a hybrid of the two automated counting machines Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) and Optical Mark Reader (OMR) in the 2025 mid-term polls. 

Tanjuatco and other legislators had noted that such a hybrid should have been used or tested in other elections before; however, reports had shown that Miru had only rolled out these two systems separately, and never as a combination. 

Adding to Tanjuatco’s concerns were reports that Miru's utilization of both the DRE and OMR systems had been problematic during recent elections held in Iraq and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), respectively. 

Citing Section 10 of Republic Act (RA) No. 9369, Tanjuatco pointed out that the AES procured by the Comelec "must have demonstrated capability and been successfully used in a prior electoral exercise here or abroad." 

"It's a big red flag that the Automated Election Law has been violated. It does not help that Miru had been unsuccessful in using the DRE and OMR on separate occasions," said the Rizal congressman. 

"Imagine if Miru will use the untested DRE-OMR hybrid in our elections next year. We Filipino voters will be guinea pigs, with no certainty that our votes will be collected efficiently and counted correctly," he added. 

Tanjuatco had likewise questioned the integrity of vote-counting after he personally saw Miru's prototype machine reading crumpled, marked and torn sample ballots during the demo before legislators. 

Also, the Rizal representative had decried the railroaded award of the AES contract to Miru amid then-mounting calls for the Comelec to first look into the irregularities that poll watchdogs and civil society groups flagged earlier on. 

Tanjuatco reiterated his call to scrap the Comelec-Miru deal to maintain the integrity of the 2025 polls. The legislator also reiterated that Comelec instead use for next year's automated election the existing 97,000 VCMs remaining in the poll body's possession. 

"These VCMs are still functioning very well and are all covered by warranty. The machines had been used in our past successful automated elections, so there will be no problem using them again," he stressed. 

"If we want credible elections next year, there are only two things to do: end the Miru contract now, and use the Comelec's existing VCMs. Let us not risk an election failure." 

Tanjuatco earlier said that by reusing VCMs, the government could also save billions, which can instead be spent on priority programs and projects.