A VETERAN advocate for clean elections on Sunday expressed fears the May 2022 electoral exercise would be marred by widespread fraud due an alleged “grand plan to cheat” the national and local elections as the Smartmatic Corporation sealed its fifth contract with the Commission on Elections (COMELEC).

The poll body’s record showed that the COMELEC had awarded SMARTMATIC the contracts for the refurbished vote counting machines (VCMs), secure digital (SD) main cards, SD write once-read many (WORM) cards, cleaning sheets, software deal for election management system, VCMs (separate from the refurbished VCMs) and consolidation-canvassing system.

“Despite the public advice of President Rodrigo Duterte to replace Smartmatic due to the issue of cheating, the COMELEC forced its way to let the Venezuelan IT company control its machinery in the 2022 elections,” said Atty. Glenn Chong.

Based on information released to the media, the COMELEC awarded to the Smartmatic last December 2020 the contracts for the “refurbishment” of 97,345 VCMs, supply of 109,745 SD main cards, supply of same number of SD WORM Cards and 250,000 cleaning sheets, despite the fact that the price it offered was much higher at P637,443,308.45.

The lone competitor of Smartmatic in the bidding was the PIVOT INTERNATIONAL INC. AND POWER SERVICE (PSI) INC. JOINT VENTURE (PSI JOINT VENTURE) that offered the lowest calculated bid (LCB) at around P490 million.

If the law on bidding was strictly followed, the COMELEC should have awarded the contracts to the PSI JOINT VENTURE since it offered the “lowest calculated bid” (LCB) of P490 million compared to Smartmatic’s much expensive offer of P637.4 million.

However, records disclosed that the poll body’s special bids and awards committee (SBAC) disqualified the PSI JOINT VENTURE during the December bidding due to a clerical issue of “zero” or “dash” and the specific bid prices of the SD cards and the cleaning sheets.

The COMELEC allegedly did not ask the Smartmatic about the same issues as the latter offered a single price for all the products.

Another bidding was held by the COMELEC on May 5 for the software on election management system, VCMs and consolidation-canvassing system.

Smartmatic and PSI JOINT VENTURE once again met and competed with each other at the COMELEC’s turf.

Once again, records pointed out that the PSI JOINT VENTURE won the bidding as it passed the LCB compared to SMARTMATIC’s huge price.

However, the COMELEC’s SBAC disqualified the PSI JOINT VENTURE in the said second bidding due to the 15GB in the SD Cards that is short of 16GB that the COMELEC had required.

After the disqualification was done following the conduct of the “post evaluation bid”, the COMELEC awarded to the SMARTMATIC the contracts on the software for the election management system, VCMs and the consolidation-canvassing system.

Chong stressed that what the COMELEC’s SBAC and the COMELEC’s top honchos have done was “In a very public manner, contradicted the president and it violated Republic Act 9369, or Automated Elections System Law, and Republic Act 3019, or Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act”.

Chong further berated the awarding of COMELEC the contracts for the set of equipment that will be used in the May 2022 elections as it is “manifestly and grossly disadvantageous to our government and the public”.

“It is clear that the COMELEC officials have no care on the plight of the public and other concerns needed by the country in time of pandemic, because what is important to the poll body is it gave the contract to the SMARTMATIC despite the latter lost in the bidding. After [the SBAC] successfully did its job of approving the anomalous contract of the [elections] machines, [the COMELEC’s top honchos] awarded to the SMARTMATIC the contract for the software on vote counting machines, Election Management System and consolidation and canvassing systems. What is worse here is that even SMARTMATIC USA’s name has full of holes due to the issues of election fraud in America, still the COMELEC gave the contract to the joint venture of TIM-SMMT and SMARTMATIC USA,” Chong elaborated.

Chong pointed out that cheating “is no longer a “cloud of doubt” on the election system. It is a “hurricane of doubt” that destroys our election, democracy and our future as a liberated people.”

The widespread fraud in the country’s AES has been disclosed and consistently opposed by Atty. Chong for a decade now.