(Eagle News) — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is asking the National Printing Office to explain if it had indeed subcontracted the printing of the voters’ information sheet for the May 13 midterm elections in violation of the rules of the Commission on Audit.
Comelec commissioner Rowena Guanzon said that they had received information on Tuesday, May 14, that the NPO had subcontracted the printing job to Holy Family Printing Press which resulted in errors in the voters’ information sheet.
“Holy Family Printing ang nag-deliver sa kanila at mali-mali…Isang gubernador ang nagsabi na ang number niya sa balota number two. Doon sa voters’ information sheet na hawak ng election officer, number six siya,” Guanzon said.
“So dahil mali-mali, it could have confused the voters. It could have resulted in failure of elections,” she said.
Guanzon said that this subcontracting is againt COA rules.
“Because that’s against COA rules, ‘yung subcontracting na ‘yan. Kung totoo ‘yan and some directors answer my question, Holy Family printing ang nag-deliver sa kanila at mali mali,” Guanzon said.
-Guanzon on subcontracting: “That is a crime” —
The Comelec official said that if the NPO indeed had subcontracted the printing work to another agency, this was a “crime.”
“Pag totoong sinubcontract nila ‘yan at bawal ‘yan sa COA, aba that is a crime. Dapat sinabihan kami, hindi niyo pala kayang magprint niyan. Kaya nga sa inyo binigay kasi gobyerno kayo eh tapos ganyan,” Guanzon said.
She, however, stressed that despite these problems, there was no anomaly in the conduct of elections and said that the poll body is open to a third-party audit.
-Comelec assures credibility of elections-
“Willing kaming may third party na audit diyan ng logs pagkatapos,” Guanzon told media.
“I want to assure the public that we are open to inquiries or technical audit… Ako and Commissioner Guia prefer an independent third party to do this,” she said.
She assured the public that they can rely on the reliability of the elections, and there was no “cheating” or “magic” that happened.
“I can assure personally na wala pong daya diyan o magic,” she said.
(With a report from Meanne Corvera, Eagle News Service)
