ON the heels of the disqualification of Smartmatic Philippines Inc. as a service provider of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), the poll body is once again being urged to consider tapping the use of the hybrid election system.
In an interview, former Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) secretary Eliseo Rio said the Comelec should take another look at using the hybrid election system instead of once again going for a fully automated election system (AES).
“Whatever they say, a foreign system can be used to rig the elections. Why not go for something that can be done locally?” said Rio.
“This hybrid election system can be done by Filipinos, Filipino IT experts. You will not need vote counting machines,” he added.
Aside from being at the hands of local IT experts, Rio said such a system will offer more transparency.
“The vote counting machine is the one counting the votes now. But we don’t know if their count is correct in the printed election returns. We have doubts if the machines are preloaded,” said Rio.
He also noted how the hybrid election system is the one being pushed by several ranking officials in government.
“This hybrid election system is the system being advocated by Senator Imee Marcos and our present President Marcos Jr.,” said Rio.
In the hybrid system, voting and counting will be done manually, while transmission and canvassing shall be automated.
Under the Poll Automation Law, the Comelec is mandated to adopt the use of an automated election system.
The renewed call comes days after the Comelec en banc ruled to disqualify and disallow Smartmatic from “any public bidding process for elections.”
It also comes before the deadline for the submission and opening of bids for the Full Automation System with Transparency Audit/Count (FASTrAC) project set on December 12.
