ELECTION watchdog Kontra Daya on Friday, May 31, 2019, urged the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to heed the call of President Rodrigo Duterte to drop its perennial technology partner Smartmatic International.
"We hope that Duterte’s remark regarding Smartmatic and election fraud is not just a sound bite creatively spun or unfortunately reversed in the days or months to come," Kontra Daya said in a statement.
"For now, the Comelec should heed Duterte’s advice and take the necessary steps toward a foreign intervention-free and fraud-free election system," it added.
During his meeting with the Filipino community in Tokyo, Duterte urged the Comelec to end its deal with the multinational technology firm in the wake of the issues that plagued the midterm elections.
The group said the Comelec need not look far to see the rationale behind Duterte’s call than in the conduct of the last elections.
These, it recalled, include the glitches encountered in the vote counting machines (VCMs), Secure Digital (SD) cards, voter registration verification machines (VRVMs), and transparency server.
"The President’s remark acknowledges the problems not only with the company, in particular, but also with the conduct of the automated elections in general," said Kontra Daya.
Aside from severing its ties with Smartmatic, Kontra Daya said the Comelec should also seek compensation from the technology firm.
"They should also demand a full reimbursement of the billions of pesos of taxpayers’ money paid to Smartmatic for the damage it has done in the four automated election cycles in the country from 2010 to 2019," said Kontra Daya. (HDT/SunStar Philippines)