The Commission on Elections (Comelec) aims to secure enough funding before the May 2025 elections.
However, their budget for 2024 was cut from PHP 43.71 billion to PHP 27.10 billion in the proposed PHP 5.678-trillion 2024 National Expenditure Program (NEP) submitted to the House of Representatives by the Department of Budget and Management.
To cope with the reduced budget, Comelec might purchase items in batches based on the availability of funds. They plan to procure components for their automated election system (AES) in groups.
One group would include automated counting machines (ACMs) and necessary supplies like secure digital cards, ballot paper, marking pens, modem, external battery, and iButton if still needed.
Other procurement lots consist of transmission services, Internet voting services, and international end-to-end certification.
Comelec might also reduce support staff to manage the budget constraints.
Previously, Comelec had announced plans to replace 97,000 vote counting machines with ACMs through their proposed Fully Automated System with Transparency, Audit, and Count (FASTrAC) for the 2025 polls.
Source: PhilNews24 | August 4, 2023
