Press Release - Privilege Speech of Senator Risa Hontiveros on Comelec procurement issues

Mr. President, dear colleagues, I rise on a point of personal and collective privilege. I rise to bring to your attention a disturbing contractual award entered into for the 2025 National and Local elections.

Last February 22, 2024, the COMELEC announced that it awarded the contract for the lease - not the purchase, but the lease - of the Automatic Voting Machines for the 2025 National & Local Elections.

With an P18.827 Billion Approved Budget for Contract, ang kontratang ito ang pinakamalaki sa kasaysayan ng mga halalan sa Pilipinas. It dwarfs the aggregate total of P25 Billion spent for poll automation from 2010 to 2022.

Ang nakakapagtaka, Mr. President, dear colleagues, the bidding for the richest single contract in Philippine election history was only able to attract a single bidder: a Joint Venture composed of South Korea's Miru Systems Co. Ltd., and Philippine companies Integrated Computer Systems, St. Timothy Construction Corporation, and Centerpoint Solutions Technologies.

This company, Miru, is no stranger to controversy. Miru was previously involved in supplying automated election systems for aside from its home country, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Republic of Iraq.

In Congo, researchers reportedly found that the machines Miru tried to sell there were repackaged equipment originally intended for Argentina, where similar machines faced pushback. Ang tawag nga sa Congo ng mga election machines doon ay "cheating machines."

In Iraq, a 2018 Reuters report found that Miru's machines were "at the heart of fraud allegations that led to a manual recount in some areas after the May 12 election."

Ayon sa mga mananaliksik, 30% and 75% of the voting machines supplied by Miru, respectively, were affected by election-day glitches and malfunctions, which lead to failure of elections in those countries.

And while these doubts linger in our minds - doubts caused by electoral troubles in fragile states like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq - it seems that there is also a clear violation of law.

Question: prototype nga ba ang automated counter machines?

During post-qualification - the phase of the competitive bidding process