MANILA, Philippines?It looks likely that there will be computerized elections next year?but only in some urban areas.

With all seven bidders for the P11.3-billion automation contract disqualified last week, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is looking at the possibility of holding computerized balloting in selected areas?instead of nationwide?rather than go for a negotiated bid.

The participants have filed a motion for reconsideration, but Comelec Chair Jose Melo, apprehensive that no company would win, said he would rather hold a second bidding for partial automated elections.

Melo rejected a negotiated bidding, a suggested fallback by some Comelec officials.

?We will be criticized for it,? Melo said.

The Comelec?s Special Bids and Awards Committee (SBAC) disqualified all seven firms that participated in the eligibility screening last week for various reasons. The procurement committee is currently hearing the appeals of the consortia.

?Unless it is for the compliance with the law,? the poll body would rather not enter into a negotiated bid with a contractor, Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez told the media Tuesday.

He noted that a negotiated bidding would taint the poll body, which was smarting from attacks on its credibility when the Supreme Court voided the P1.3-billion contract for poll automation in the 2004 elections.

?We really don?t want a negotiated contract. It will erase the gains of automation,? Jimenez said.

Under the law, the poll body must hold computerized polls in the 2010 national and presidential elections.

A partial automation focused on urban areas is the next best scenario for the Comelec, Jimenez said.

Another possibility is to just hold manual elections, but the poll body is ?not entertaining? that idea right now, he added.

Jimenez also rejected the suggestion of some quarters to use the Open Election System advocated by former Comelec Chair Christian Monsod and information technology expert Augusto Lagman. This involves manual casting of ballots, but computerized counting and transmission of results.

According to Jimenez, the system was not included in the proposal for the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) system preferred by Comelec.

The PCOS is a paper-based automated election system where the ballot is scanned, recorded and transmitted from the precinct level. The Comelec said it needed 80,000 election machines for 2010.

Jimenez said the SBAC, chaired by legal department chief Ferdinand Rafanan, was expected to rule on the bidders? appeal for reconsideration either on Wednesday or Thursday.

Despite the developments, Jimenez said the poll body was still within its timeline in its election preparations.

Mudslinging among bidders

With the tender yet unresolved, bidders engaged in mudslinging among themselves, something observers said was to be expected. But, this time around, the attacks were swift and even went on cyberspace.

Two days after the disqualifications, a video was uploaded on YouTube showing an official of one of the bidders signing documents inside a bathroom in the Comelec, ostensibly to comply with a requirement posthaste.

That the competition has become nastier and tougher is a testament to the transparency in the bidding process, observers said.

In the bidding for the 2004 automation project, the dirt about MegaPacific eSolutions Corp. came long after it was chosen as the contractor, said Philippine Computer Society official Edgardo Marquez.

This time, because the companies and their subsidiaries were revealed during the eligibility screening, it was easy for companies to find fault with each other, Marquez said.

?In 2004, the process was not as open,? he said.

Toix Cerna of the Transparency and Accountability Network said the rumors and the attacks against the companies will ultimately help the SBAC in its post-disqualification process.

?They will have an idea what to investigate,? she said.