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Thursday, January 29, 2004
Mega Pacific appeals SC ruling on automation contract
By Benjamin B. Pulta
A CONSORTIUM that won a government contract for the conduct of automated counting of election results has asked the Supreme Court (SC) to reconsider its decision to nullify the P 1.3 billion deal.
In a 97-page omnibus motion, Mega Pacific eSolutions Inc., through their lawyers, Wednesday urged the High Court to allow the case to be set for another hearing and allow them a new opportunity to present evidence that the contract was legal.
The lawyers of the firm said the High Tribunal "made unsubstantiated findings of fact relying merely on the allegations advanced by the petitioners, which are belied by the very records of the case, in transgressions of the dictum that this High Court is not a trier of facts."
Mega Pacific’s lawyers also said the High Court “erred in not ruling that the petitioners in the case have no legal standing to initiate the suit and that otherwise the case should have been dismissed for its failure to exhaust the administrative remedies available to the petitioners before the case was elevated to the SC under the so -called ‘protest mechanism’ of the law automating polls.”
Last January 13, the SC declared as null and void Commission on Elections (Comelec) Resolution No. 6074, awarding the contract for Phase II of the project and also declared null and void the contract executed between Comelec and Mega Pacific eSolutions (MPEI).
The Comelec was likewise ordered to refrain from implementing any other contract or agreement entered into with regard the project.
Three magistrates, namely, Adolfo S. Azcuna, Renato C. Corona and Dante O. Tinga, dissented from the majority opinion while three others - Jose C. Vitug, Consuelo Ynares-Santiago and Chief Justice Hilario G. Davide Jr., filed separate opinions.
In the ruling, the High Court also urged the Office of the Ombudsman which to "determine the criminal liability, if any, of the public officials and conspiring private individuals, involved in the resolution and contract.
It likewise tasked the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) "to take measures to protect the government and vindicate public interest from the ill-effects of the illegal disbursements of public funds made by reason of the void resolution and contract."
SC Public Information Office Chief Ismael Khan earlier said the OSG’s task would be to try and recover P800 million of the P1.3 billion already paid by the government.
The petitioners in the case were the Information Technology Foundation of the Philippines (ITFP) and private petitioners Ma. Corazon M. Ako, Miguel Uy, Eduardo H. Lopez, Agusto C. Lagman, Rex C. Drilon, Miguel Hilado, Ley Salcedo and Manuel Alcuaz Jr.
The respondents were Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr.; Comelec Bidding and Award Chairman Eduardo D. Mejos and the committee members Gideon De Guzman, Jose F. Balbuena, Lamberto P. Llamas, and Bartolome Sinocruz Jr.; Mega Pacific eSolutions Inc.; and Mega Pacific Consortium.
(January 29, 2004 issue)
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