00:00The chairman of Comelec filed a complaint against Ombudsman
00:04because of his involvement in a company that supplies the election system that will be used in 2025.
00:11As a result, he was dismissed when he filed a complaint against the 2016 election system that is being investigated by Comelec.
00:21Joseph Moro was the witness.
00:23Former Congressman Edgar Arice filed a complaint against the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act
00:32against Ombudsman against Comelec Chairperson George Garcia
00:35and also against 7 other Comelec officials who are members of the Bills and Awards Committee.
00:41Arice's allegation is that Garcia promoted Mirosystems Company Ltd.
00:46and this company to receive a contract worth P17.9 billion for the automated election system that will be used in 2025.
00:55According to Arice, the new contract should not have been bid
00:59because there is a contract with Smartmatic to refurbish the Vote Counting Machine or VCM used in the 2022 elections.
01:07In addition, it was bought and owned by the government and has a warranty.
01:12It's already a warranty. They just declared that it's broken.
01:15But actually, it can still be used.
01:17Comelec asked for permission to give the contract to Mirosystems even though there is no official joint venture agreement
01:23and even though there is no proven track record of Mirosystems.
01:27Arice asked the Ombudsman to investigate and sue Garcia in Sandigan Bayan.
01:32Our end goal here is not to use the Mirosystems because it's very dangerous.
01:38I will not stop this until we reach impeachment.
01:42The issue of track record and qualification of Mirosystems is already in the Supreme Court, according to the chairman of Comelec.
01:48We promised as a sign of respect and recognition to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court that we will not talk about it.
01:57Garcia's defense is more dangerous if old machines will be used in the 2025 midterm elections.
02:04In addition, the Congress adjudicated the replacement of the machines.
02:08Almost all of the machines that we have on standby for that election, for pilot testing, broke.
02:15So the use of old machines is easy to say.
02:18But if it's already there, who will be blamed? Garcia?
02:21Garcia thinks that Arice is just paying attention to the investigation of Comelec
02:27on the anomalies in the purchase of the Automated Election System in 2016.
02:32In fairness to him, he's not a party to that.
02:34But within the Comelec, in our opinion, there are people who can answer and there are people who need explanation.
02:45The spokesman of Comelec added that they are expecting the Comelec to file a complaint,
02:50but all of them have become loyal to the duty of obeying the law and have full transparency.
02:58For Jimmy Integrated News, Joseph Morong.
03:01Stay tuned for 24 Hours.
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