An illustration of a malfunctioning vote counting machine. Image from 黑料社 / Ed Lustan

MANILA, Philippines — Some P10 billion would be needed to lease nearly 100,000 vote counting machines (VCMs) to be used in the national and local polls, Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner George Garcia said Thursday.

The figure is higher than the poll body’s earlier estimate of P6.7 billion to replace the 97,000 old VCMs.

“Even for the sake of argument that a machine will be costing us, at least ‘yung (the) lease po ng mga (of around) 65,000 to 70,000, that will cost the Comelec or the people’s money almost P6.7 [billion] to P7 billion, but that is a very conservative estimate,”  Garcia said on CNN Philippines’ The Source.

“I think po the proper estimate, the right estimate, is really P10 billion to rent or lease these almost 100,000 machines,” he added.

The commissioner is hoping that the Congress will be “willing to invest” on the VCMs for the next elections.

“We are hoping that our Congress will be willing to invest on at least the lease of these machines so that at least we can guarantee that the problems of 2022 will not happen again,” said Garcia.

Around 1,800 VCMs malfunctioned in the May 9 elections, the Comelec earlier reported.

In a hearing of the Senate electoral reforms committee on Tuesday, Comelec chairman Saidamen Pangarungan attributed the faulty VCMs during recently concluded polls to the lack of budget given to the poll body.

The Comelec has received an P8 billion allocation by Congress, lower than its request of P12 billion.

EDV