Press Release
January 24, 2006
PIMENTEL ASSAILS GOVERNMENTS FAILURE TO RECOVER P1.3 BILLION SPENT FOR IDLE COUNTING MACHINES
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today
expressed dismay over the governments failure to recover the P1.3
billion payment to the supplier of 1,961 units of automated
vote-counting machines after the purchase contract was voided by the
Supreme Court two years ago for being tainted with graft and legal
infirmities.
Pimentel assailed the governments kid gloves treatment of officers
and owners of the contractor, MegaPacific, who have defied the high
courts order to return the payment to the government aside from
going scot-free due to the Ombudsmans indecision on the graft
charges filed against them and top officials of the Commission on
Elections.
The minority leader raised this issue in the face of the Comelecs
request for the allocation of P1 billion under the 2006 national
budget for poll modernization and the reports that Chairman Benjamin
Abalos is eyeing the adoption of an electronic voting system.
Out of delicadeza, Abalos and other Comelec officials should
refrain from undertaking a new modernization program considering
that they are facing criminal charges over their involvement in the
anomalous vote-counting machine contract and the fact that the money
spent for the idle equipment has not been recovered by the
government, he said.
Pimentel said the chances for recovering the amount have dimmed
after officers and incorporators of MegaPacific dissolved the
company and closed down its office in Metro Manila.
Pimentel reiterated that Congress should not allocate funds for poll
modernization this year unless Chairman Abalos and the other
elections commissioners resign for having lost their credibility.
The contract was declared null and void by the Supreme Court, in a
decision rendered in January, 2004, after it was found that
Comelecs own technical specifications for the voting machines were
not followed.
Pimentel said the voting machines manufactured by a South Korean
company, were found to be obsolete and not suited for countrys
tropical weather condition. Aside from this, he said the contract
was found by graft investigators to be grossly overpriced.
He urged Abalos and company to heed the public demand for their mass
resignation, instead of disowning any responsibility for the bungled
automation deal.
Pimentel said Abalos and other Comelec commissioners committed an
act of impropriety when they and by their wives, traveled to Seoul,
South Korea sometime in 2003 to visit the plant of the maker of the
counting machines.
Pimentel said he was informed that the plane tickets and hotel
accommodations for the trip were bankrolled by the Korean company.
This contradicted Abalos claim that the expenses for the trip were
paid for out of the P1 million he won in a golf tournament in Wack
Wack, Mandaluyong City.
If Chairman Abalos is telling the truth, I challenge him to produce
the plane tickets, vouchers and other documents to support his
claim, he said.
Pimentel also cited the findings of Ombudsman graft investigators
about the linkages between and among the top officials of the
Comelec and the officers of MegaPacific.
According to these findings, Abalos and MegaPacific incorporator
Pedro Tan had stood as sponsors in the wedding of a son of two
MegaPacific incorporators, spouses Enrique and Rosita Tansipek.
With the relationship of spouses Enrique and Rosita Tansipek and
Pedro Tan with Abalos, prudence dictates that Abalos should have
inhibited himself from the whole process. His failure put into a
highly questionable condition or situation the integrity of the
entire process of the bidding and awarding of the contract, as well
as the credibility and independence of all the officials of the
Comelec who participated, the Ombudsman findings said. |