No conflict of interest in F2 Logistics deal for Eleksyon 2022, Comelec insists

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Tuesday maintained that there is no conflict of interest in the P535-million contract it awarded to F2 Logistics, a firm linked to Dennis Uy, a businessman associated with President Rodrigo Duterte.

“First of all, the question of conflict of interest was looked at, talagang chineck yan ng ating [that was really checked by our] Bids and Awards Committee and it was found that there really was no grounds to say that there was a conflict of interest,” Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said in an ANC interview.

Jimenez also maintained that the awarding of the contract is in accordance with the procurement laws.

“Why it couldn’t be given to another bidder? Because our laws are very strict. You have a bidding, you have public bidding, there are rules that you abide by and if you have the lowest responsive bid, that’s who you award it to,” he said.

“And yun po ang nangyari dito [That’s what happened here]. F2 Logistics did proffer the lowest responsive bid and therefore, nag-qualify siya, sa kanya mapupunta yung kontrata [it qualified and they got the contract],” he added.

Last week, Comelec formally awarded the service contract to F2 Logistics as indicated in a contract dated October 29.

Uy is a major contributor in Duterte’s presidential bid in 2016.

Kontra Daya, an election watchdog, has asked the Comelec to  pull out from the contract because of the company's links to a Duterte ally, which it said could pose a "potential conflict of interest."

Although F2 Logistics has a track record of deploying equipment in the 2019 Sangguniang Kabataan Elections, the watchdog's convenor, Professor Danilo Arao, insisted that the delivery equipment deal is an "issue of ethics and delicadeza."

In the same television interview, Jimenez said there should be a valid reason for the rescission of the contract with F2 logistics.

“There will have to be some sort of violation in the terms of the contract, some sort of violation by F2 or a change of circumstances, like all of a sudden ‘di na kailangan ng Comelec ang kontrata [Comelec no longer needs the contract]… but in terms of what's being floated now, in terms of suggestions being made, again that would not be grounds for rescission,” Jimenez said.

While he confirmed that F2's contract involves the transporting and handling of all vote-counting machines (VCMs), Jimenez said the role of F2 Logistics would not impact the results of the 2022 national and local elections.

“Their control over vote-counting machines will not translate to any impact to election results,” he said.

Jimenez explained that the VCMs will be delivered at the polling three to four days prior to election day and a final testing and sealing evaluation will be conducted to check if the machines are “in working order.”

Apart from this, Jimenez said that the VCMs will have to print a “zero report” before the voting starts to prove that there are no “pre-loaded results” during the transport of the VCMs.

“The minute you find out na walang laman yan [that the VCMs are empty], it prints out zero report, then you know that your speculation is baseless kasi obviously walang nangyari sa makina [nothing happened to the machines], and then, that is the only time that the results are actually generated by the machine, habang nangyayari ang elections. Ang layo ng logistics d’yan [while the elections is happening. Logistics has nothing to do with that]” he said.

Furthermore, Jimenez assured the public that F2 will not handle paraphernalia containing election results.

“After the voting, when you have your printed results and then you have your transmission completed, etcetera, you take the memory cards out and you give them to the election officer. This is not going through the logistics,” he said.

“Even at the final point, logistics will not do anything to your supplies because the most important supplies that are really necessary for the integrity of the outcomes is nasa aktwal na tao ng Comelec [with the Comelec officer]. At any point during this whole process, F2 does not have any means of affecting the outcome,” he added. —KBK, GMA News