Former Representative of the 2nd District of Caloocan City Egay Erice slammed the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) over the switch from electoral service provider Smartmatic to Korean firm Miru Systems, accusing them of misleading the public and orchestrating a "one-time, big-time scam" worth billions. He announced he will file an impeachment complaint against COMELEC chair George Garcia, and all commissioners of the poll body.
In an exclusive interview with DZRH, Erice said the COMELEC's contract with Miru Systems violates Republic Act 9369, or the Election Automation Law of 2007. He stressed that the contract was clearly illegal, and disclosed he had given the commission 10 days to answer whether it had violated sections 7 and 12, which concern the automated election system's (AES) necessary functions and the examination of its devices by candidates, respectively. The commission had asked for a 30-day extension.
He pointed out that the law prohibits the use of a prototype which has not been utilized in the country or anywhere else in the world, for that matter. The Philippines has over 90,000 vote-counting machines (VCM) which were certified to be in good working condition in January. Five months later, in May, these were claimed to be broken and without spare parts.
Erice asserted the commission must be lying, due to the recency of the certification, the VCMs' one-year warranty, and the contract with Smartmatic which obligates them to provide spare parts until the 2025 elections.
"Meanwhile, nagpo-propaganda ang COMELEC. Nami-mislead ang taumbayan na maganda ang sistema. Pero ang sistemang ito ay masasabi kong tapat na ito ay isang P18 billion one-time, big-time na scam," he said.
("Meanwhile, COMELEC is spreading propaganda. Our countrymen are being misled that the new system is good. But I can say the system equals to a P18 billion one-time, big-time scam.")
Erice believes the scam was devised after a long period of planning, but that execution flopped because of a misstep.
"Sinabi ng Supreme Court na they committed grave abuse of discretion. Bakit nila ito ginawa, gusto nila i-rig ang bidding," he said of COMELEC's disqualification of Smartmatic for the AES bid, even before it had submitted a bid.
("The Supreme Court ruled they committed a grave abuse of discretion. Why they did this, it was because they wanted to rig the bidding.")
Erice also called attention to Garcia's differing statements, saying "nagsasanga-sanga na ang dila niya (his tongue has grown branches)." Additionally, system presentations vary, he said, because they actually still do not know how to operate the Miru machine.
He claimed to have "first-hand knowledge" as he had allegedly spoken to people from Miru a number of times. In the first of these encounters, Willy Yu, who makes the ballot boxes, supposedly asked Erice to hold back from targeting his "negosyo" or business venture, in which he already invested P200 million.
Erice reportedly responded this was wrong as the machines were prototypes. He has nothing personal against the company, but if they wanted to avoid complaints, they should observe the law's stipulations for the machines. He also reprimanded Alvin Lim of Miru.
He also recounted witnessing boxes suspected to contain cash loaded into a COMELEC official's vehicle, which he will reveal further details on during impeachment proceedings.
COMELEC has replaced Smartmatic as the election service provider with Miru Systems, and has done demonstrations with their Automated Counting Machines (ACM) at the Rappler Headquarters, live on ANC, and UP Diliman recently.
