HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

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1993

Selection of Appropriate Technology

      In June, a study entitled "Modernizing Philippine Elections" by an international consultant in election administration, Ms. Marie Garber of Rockville, Maryland, USA, in collaboration with the Philippine Computer Society (PCS), scanned alternative technology to modernize the electoral process in the Philippines. The services of Ms. Garber and the PCS consultants were contracted under the auspices of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The significance of the Garber Report is that it served to affirm the direction of the COMELEC, as contained in its six-year Operation MODEX program (1992 - 1998), and that it presented several available technologies in the COMELEC's modernization effort to modernize the Philippine electoral process.

      The following month, in July, of the same year, on the basis of the Garber Report, Andersen Consulting did an Information Systems Planning (ISP) Study for the COMELEC, in behalf of the PCS, which, among others, made a preliminary evaluation of voting and canvassing equipment and recommended consideration of either the optical mark sense or punchcard system as possible technology fitted for Philippine setting.

      The COMELEC made sure that conduct of the public transactions in its organization in connection with its modernization programme, in its activities and linkages with public and private agencies, would be transparent, promulgating a resolution (Res. No. 2616) to this effect in the month of August. Immediately after, the COMELEC sent requests for proposals/bids to suppliers shortlisted in the July Andersen ISP study and to other local and foreign of canvassing equipment.

      Two months afterwards, in October, a 15-day inspection trip to the United States was made by a specified COMELEC team, composed of:

1. then Commissioner-in-Charge of the Modernization Project - Regalado Maambong,
2. then Planning Department Director - Mamasapunod Aguam,
3. then Finance Services Department Director - Ernesto Herrera,
4. then Technical Consultant for the Modernization Project of the Commission - Mr. Alwin Sta. Rosa, and
5. then Andersen Consulting President - Mr. Baltazar Endriga

      The inspection trip team met with the following while in the US:

1. Business Records Corporation (BRC), Texas
2. Sequoia Pacific voting Equipment, Inc., New York
3. National Computer Systems International (NCSI), Minnesota
4. Unilect Corporation, California
5. Officials of San Mateo County, state of California
6. paper suppliers/manufacturers

      A preliminary report was presented to the Commission en banc afterwards, which included a slide presentation of the election systems surveyed and sample ballots/forms used in various jurisdictions in the US. Integral to the team's reports was its recommendation of the optical mark sense technology as the best suited for Philippine elections and the shortlisting of three (3) companies based on the results of the evaluation during the inspection trip.

1992

1994