Comelec to hire 120,000 IT experts for 2010 polls

As many as 120,000 information technology experts will be tapped by the Commission on Elections and its private partners for the automation of the 2010 polls.

The automation process was under way and the hiring of workers had started, since the Supreme Court had refused to grant the petition of a citizens’ group for an injunction to stop the Comelec from signing the contract, officials said.

Of the required number of IT experts, the Comelec will hire around 80,000 as technical evaluators to help poll officers supervise the elections at the voting precincts, according to Commissioner Rene Sarmiento.

Another 40,000 workers will be enlisted by Smartmatic-Total Information Management, the consortium that won the poll automation contract, either as surveyors or machine installers or information officers.

There are 80,000 polling precincts and each would be supplied by the Smartmatic group with an electronic machine or precinct count optical scan that can read ballots. Results would be relayed to the Comelec via computers, thus the poll outcome would be known in two days, officials said.

Sarmiento said the Comelec would ask state corporations like the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. and agencies such as the Tourism and Trade Departments and National Telecommunications Commission, to send their IT experts for the election job. “The exact number is up for discussion at the Comelec,” said Sarmiento.

Those who will work for Comelec will each receive at least P1,000 a day in honoraria, according to Sarmiento.

The Comelec was allowed by law to assign IT-capable people to every voting center on election day, said Ferdinand Rafanan, chairman of the Comelec special bids and awards committee.

The technical evaluators would work one week before the election and another week after it, Rafanan said.

The Comelec had P11.3 billion in budget for automation and of that amount, P7.2 billion would pay for the services of the Smartmatic-Total Management joint venture, Sarmiento said.

Juan Villa Jr., the joint venture’s chairman, said the Smartmatic-Total Management group had started hiring.

“Some, in fact, are working already,” he said.

“They will be working from six months to one year before and after the elections, depending on our needs. The pay depends on the skills and capability of the worker.”

Smartmatic project director Cesar Flores said the joint venture was committed to deliver the voting machines on schedule. There was enough time to manufacture and deliver the machines, he said.

On Friday, the Comelec signed the poll automation contract with Smartmatic-Total Information group after the Supreme Court rejected a citizens’ group petition for a temporary restraining order.

Led by lawyer Harry Roque, the group said the Comelec would be violating the law if it went ahead and signed the poll automation contract. It raised several issues that it said required the high court’s intervention by way of a temporary restraining order.

But the Court did not see any urgency in issuing an injunction, according to spokesman Jose Midas Marquez. Justices would take up the petition when they resumed session tomorrow, he said. –Joel Zurbano, Manila Standard Today