ELECTIONS chairman George Garcia yesterday said the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is looking to come out today with its resolution on the petition to disqualify the multinational firm Smartmatic Philippines from participating in the 2025 poll automation project.
In an interview, Garcia said: “This one’s final: Hopefully, by Wednesday, we will be able to come out with our decision.”
He said the Comelec is setting a deadline to settle the matter before the submission of bids for the Full Automation System with Transparency Audit/Count (FASTrAC) project on November 28.
“We want to promulgate the decision before the submission of all bidding documents of all looking to participate (in the public bidding),” he said.
Last June, a petition was filed by former poll commissioner Augusto Lagman, former Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) secretary Eliseo Rio, retired Col. Leonardo Odoño, and former Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines president Franklin Ysaac calling for the disqualification of Smartmatic.
The petitioners asked the Commission to declare Smartmatic as ineligible to participate in the public bidding for the 2025 automated election system (AES), alleging that the May 2022 AES was attended by “serious and material irregularities,” particularly in the transmission and reception of election results.
