Former lawmaker blasts poll chief’s detractors

EMBATTLED Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Erwin Garcia has found an ally in former Biliran representative Glenn Chong.

Garcia is being accused by former Sagip party-list Rep. Dante Marcoleta of owning 49 offshore bank accounts containing at least $15.2 million.

Marcoleta did not specifically name Garcia, but the Comelec chief said it was him who was being referred to by the former lawmaker.

Biliran representative Glenn Chong. File Photo

Chong challenged Marcoleta to back his claims that Garcia was the listed owner of an offshore bank account in the Cayman Islands.

Marcoleta said in a press briefing on Thursday that volunteers in New York deposited $100 to two offshore bank accounts supposedly owned by Garcia to verify their existence.

“So to Marcoleta, reveal your source,” he said.

Chong claimed that Smartmatic was the mastermind behind the demolition job against Garcia because it was disqualified from participating in future Comelec public bidding.

The contract for the 2025 automated election system was awarded to Miru Systems Co. Ltd.

“The one behind [the demolition job against Garcia] is Smartmatic because it doesn’t want to lose the 2021 elections contract,” Chong said.

“It really wants to take [the contract] back because it will earn a lot of money from it, which went to Miru,” he added.

Chong said Smartmatic would “earn zero” in 2025 because of its exclusion from Comelec bidding.

“Because of that, Smartmatic got angry, so he made Garcia a project of a smear campaign,” he added, noting the demolition job was like “hitting two birds with one stone.”

“They will destroy Garcia and Miru, and it will recover the lost contract because it believes that contract is theirs. They cannot rest until they have recovered the contract,” Chong said.

He said a few months ago, Smartmatic wrote a letter to Comelec informing the poll body that it can still use the 110,000 old vote counting machines (VCMs) instead of buying P18 billion worth of new machines.

“The target of Smartmatic is to be able to remove Miru from the contract. The question is, why did Smartmatic write to the Comelec about the VCMs just now? Why did it not oppose before the bidding? Because it wants to sell new machines. In other words, Smartmatic is actually acting in bad faith,” Chong said.