Comelec says case vs Bautista justifies Smartmatic disqualification
THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) will include the money laundering case filed in the United States against its former chief Andres Bautista, when it files a motion for reconsideration of the Supreme Court ruling that it had committed a grave abuse of discretion when it disqualified Smartmatic from bidding for all automated election systems.
"[We will include these court documents] because this time, it is out in the open. It is now public, officially admitted in court; we will definitely include that if we file the motion for reconsideration," said Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia in the Kapihan sa Manila Hotel media forum on Wednesday.
Garcia said the case against Bautista, which alleged he had accepted bribes from a voting machine vendor, would prove that their decision to disqualify Smartmatic from participating in poll automation projects was justified.
Former Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Andres Bautista. File Photo«That is what we want to prove; when we issued the disqualification of the company, we did not just guess it. We have a basis, and that is our basis,» Garcia said.
«Now, the case has surfaced. So we will have to watch. So I would like to confirm, that based on our communication with the US authorities, it was confirmed that the case is officially filed in a district court in the US,» Garcia said.
The Department of Homeland Security's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) filed the case against Bautista at the US District Court in the Southern District of Florida on Sep. 19, 2023.
AdvertisementThe former Comelec chief allegedly received bribe money from top executives of an unnamed poll technology company and its subsidiaries in exchange for assistance in their bid to secure multimillion-dollar election contracts.
The company that allegedly bribed Bautista was not named in US court records, but the description in the affidavit matched that of Smartmatic.
The allegation prompted Comelec to disqualify the company from participating in all election-related procurement projects, including the 2025 polls.
Smartmatic brought the case to the Supreme Court, which ruled that Comelec committed a grave abuse of discretion when it
