MANILA – A powerful committee in the House of Representatives approved a supplemental budget equivalent to $220 million for use by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in the automation of the May 2010 presidential polls.
With the action, Congressman Junie Cua of Quirino province in the Northern Luzon highlands, the committee chairman, expressed optimism that the proposed funding would now get easy sailing when presented on the floor for plenary debates and approval in the chamber.
The Senate is also expected to approve the proposed funding to ensure that the 2010 presidential polls will be computerized and thus, wean the country away from the outmoded and ancient manual voting and tabulation of votes, which has given rise to charges of alleged massive cheating and similar irregularities in the country’s past electoral exercises.
The Comelec has pressed Congress to approve the $220 million as a follow-up to the success of the use of computerized equipment during the holding of the elections at the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) in 2008.
Lawmakers also agreed that the approval of the $220 million funding would help ensure that the elections would be held amid warnings that administration congressmen are determined to pursue the controversial issue of Charter change (Cha-cha) to extend the stay in Malacanang of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo beyond 2010 when her term expires as mandated by the Constitution.
Initially, Cha-cha aims to change the form of government from the present presidential system to federal-parliamentary.
Earlier, Secretary Roiando Andaya Jr. of the Department of Budget and Management, told the committee that the approved $220 million is over and above the $120 million approved in the 2009 budget of the Comelec for poll automation.
As an independent constitutional body, Andaya explained that the Comelec has fiscal autonomy which empowers it to use these funds and whatever savings it has for the purpose of computerizing the May 2010 elections.
At the same time, the Cua committee also approved a proposal to amend a bill pending in the House to make “mandatory” the use of the biometric system in cleansing the country’s list of voters.
According to experts, the system recognizes a person’s biological data or, in this case, data pertaining to a voter’s thumbprint, face, eyes, height and weight.
In short, it highlights the distinctness or uniqueness of one person against another, the experts pointed out.
Retired Supreme Court justice Jose Melo, the Comelec chairman, has assured that the cleansing of the voters’ list has been ongoing and, as a result, more than 50 percent have already been “purged.”
The cleansing, Melo said, involves, for instance, the removal from list of the so-called “flying voters” who go to another polling precinct after they have already cast their ballot.
Melo said the remaining 23 million voters will have to go to the Internet and check if their names are on the Comelec website.
He explained it is physically impossible for the Comelec personnel to check on each and every one of the remaining voters on its list.
Melo likewise disclosed that citizens’ groups, like the National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) are also helping the Comelec identify persons who have been included in agency’s biometric system.
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