Smartmatic seeks TRO against Comelec ban

BY ASHZEL HACHERO and GERARD NAVAL

NEARLY two weeks since it was disqualified from participating in any poll-related procurement biddings, Smartmatic Philippines yesterday asked the Supreme Court (SC) to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the decision of the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Smartmatic’s lawyer, Christian Robert Lim, said the company is also questioning the poll body’s decision to disqualify it from all future bidding processes.

“Yes, we filed a petition with the Supreme Court. This is all we can say right now,” Lim said in a Viber message.

In a social media post, Truth and Transparency Trio (TNT Trio) member Franklin Ysaac said: “As expected, Smartmatic, through their lawyer ACCRA, filed (a petition for) temporary restraining order re disqualification order by Comelec before the SC.”

In the accompanying photo of his post, it showed that Smartmatic filed a “Petition for Certiorari with extremely urgent application for the issuance of a Temporary Restraining Order and/or Writ of Preliminary Injunction” against the Comelec decision.

A copy of Smartmatic’s petition, however, was still unavailable as of press time.

Last November 29, the Comelec en banc ruled to disallow Smartmatic from joining any public bidding projects related to the elections.

Comelec chairperson George Garcia said then that the decision was reached to “preserve the integrity of the electoral process” in the country.

While he maintained that there have been no irregularities in the conduct of elections in the country, Garcia said the poll body cannot close its eyes to current issues hounding Smartmatic.

Among others, the bribery and money laundering accusations against former Comelec chief Andres Bautista was taken into consideration by the poll body when it ruled to disqualify the election technology provider.

The Comelec decision was a result of the petition filed by TNT Trio, which also includes ex poll official Augusto Lagman, former Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) secretary Eliseo Rio, and retired Col. Leonardo Odoño, against Smartmatic.

Sought for comment, Smartmatic refused to issue one concerning “pending legal cases”.

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