Show serious and sincere efforts to automate 2010 polls - Gordon

Independent Senator Richard J. Gordon today called on the government to show sincere efforts to implement the election automation law by automating the May 2010 presidential elections.

Gordon, author of Republic Act (RA) 9369 or the Amended Automated Elections System Law, made the call as he pointed out that what the country needs and what the people deserve is a full and nationwide automation of the 2010 elections.

"We hope the government is not insincere in automating the 2010 elections.. We pray, that at the end of the day, it will not appear that the government never really intended to automate the elections," he said.

"Nothing should hinder the implementation of the automation law in 2010. It would be atrocious if everything will turn out as part of a grand plan to once again steal the elections and cheat our people," he added.

The Comelec is preparing to implement a nationwide automation of elections in 2010 which is mandated by RA 9369 after its pilot testing in the August 2008 elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

However, the poll body's preparations is facing a setback after the poll body's Special Bids and Awards Committee (SBAC) disqualified the seven consortiums bidding to supply the technology that will be used to automate the elections.

The automation of the electoral process is included in President Arroyo's 10-point agenda, which will be implemented through the use of the latest technology for voting, counting, canvassing, transmission of election results, in a move to make polls fraud-free.

Gordon pointed out that the disqualification of the seven bidders by the Comelec-Special Bids and Awards Committee (SBAC) should be valid and justifiable and not whimsical and capricious.

"This is a very bad sign, sad day for Philippine democracy if we blow up this one big chance at modernizing Philippine democracy, making each vote be counted, and each voice heard," he said.

"We have to be able to show our people and the world that we can follow our own laws. A law has already been passed and the system has already been tried and tested in the ARMM elections last year, so we have to proceed with the total implementation of the law," he added.