by joseph b. zambrano

BAGUIO CITY - The Commission on Election (COMELEC) will not force for complete poll automation in the coming May 2010 national and local elections if it is not really feasible.

COMELEC Commissioner Armando Velasco said that nationwide tests are being conducted especially on spots which do not have cell sites to determine availability of signals using the Broadband Global Access Network (BGAN).

Last Wednesday, January 25, the Comelec conducted field tests in 10 sites in the country with Bakun, Benguet the pilot site in the Cordillera. Trials will continue and we will have to fast track all of this to come up with a decision whether to go ahead with poll automation, he said.

This is the first time that we are having this nationwide computerized election and we should be organized and prepared for it.

If our technical people say it is not possible because of unavailability of cell signals then the Commission is ready anytime for a manual counting, Velasco said.

According to Velasco, the Commission will decide on February 10 if the computerized election will push through.

On August 11, 2008, the provinces of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) experienced the first complete automated elections ever held in the Philippines. The entire process from voting, tabulating, transmission and tallying was automated.

Velasco said that a total of 33,000 out of 82,200 Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines have been delivered by Smartmatic-TIM. All the PCOS machines should be delivered by February 21, he added.

Smartmatic-TIM is the company that won the bidding for the 2010 poll automation and the PCOS machines are just rented out by the COMELEC, Velasco said.

The start of the 90 days campaign for the national candidates is on February 10, while the 45 days campaign for the local candidates starts on March 26, he added. **PIA-CAR