Businessman Joey de Venecia III, controversial whistleblower of the scuttled P16 billion broadband deal of the Philippine government with China's ZTE Corporation, yesterday raised the possibility of failure of elections in May next year, if the Commission on Election pushes through the first-ever poll automation in the Philippines.

De Venecia, who spoke yesterday before students of West Negros University in Bacolod City , had pioneered the broadband technology in the country.

He said the Comelec and SMARTMATIC may face difficulty in the recruitment, training and deployment of 47,000 technicians, to man the clustered 100,000 polling precincts nationwide, within seven months.

He also expressed concern over on the delivery of the voting machines, to be made by SMARTMATIC-TIM only, three days before the May 10 elections next year.

He also said many more things can happen, including the occurrence of bad weather, power outages, which could affect the transmission of results by telecommunication system, which does not operate at 100 percent efficiency.

LOSS OF VOTES

A two percent failure on transmittal of election results would translate to 800,000 votes being lost, which could alter the final results in close contest for national elective positions, he added.

In a press conference, De Venecia also said that the Aboitiz company contracted to deliver the poll automation machines nationwide, can only cover 60 percent of the entire country.

There are too many improbables that are likely to happen in the poll automation, aside from cheating in the elections, he added.

For the voters, De Venecia said, it may take a longer time to be acquainted with the newly-designed ballot forms, and to choose so many candidates in the national and local elective positions.

NCR TEST FIRST

While stating that he is not against poll automatic, De Venecia suggested that it should first be experimented on in the National Capital Region.

If it goes well there, he added, then the Comelec can apply it nationwide during the barangay elections.

The scandal exposed by De Venecia, son of former Speaker Jose de Venecia, led to the filing of graft charges by Sandiganbayan against former Comelec chairman Benjamen Abalos Sr. and Social Security System president Romulo Neri, but excluded First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo.

The younger De Venecia yesterday signified his intention for run for senator in the May 2010 elections, while his stepmother, Gina de Venecia, will run for a congressional post in the fourth district of Pangasinan.*GPB

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