August 10, 2024 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Garcia is considering filing criminal complaints in the US against Smartmatic and persons behind what he describes as a smear campaign against him.
“I have coordinated with the US DOJ (Department of Justice) just last night because I believe that this is bank fraud, identity theft and money laundering in their definition,” he told “Storycon” on One News yesterday.
He was referring to accusations that he received bribes to award the poll automation contract for the 2025 elections to South Korea’s Miru Systems, and that he keeps dirty money in offshore bank accounts.
“America can come in, this should be connected in their first investigation,” he said, noting that the US can take jurisdiction over the matter.
He also said the Comelec would use the indictment in the US of three Smartmatic executives and former poll chairman Andres Bautista for bribery and money laundering to convince the Supreme Court to uphold the disqualification of the vote counting machine provider from future elections contracts.
“We will surely manifest this and point out that we did not commit abuse of discretion because we have this basis to disqualify Smartmatic,” Garcia told Storycon.
“These developments will surely be manifested by the Comelec before the Supreme Court in relation to the cases pending there,” he said, referring to the motion for reconsideration filed by the Comelec with the SC, which granted the petition for certiorari filed by Smartmatic accusing the poll body of grave abuse of discretion in disqualifying the company.
It was in November 2023 when the Comelec disqualified Smartmatic from participating in any public bidding for elections, citing the ongoing criminal investigation on Bautista and the company.
In April 2024, the SC granted Smartmatic’s petition for certiorari, to which Comelec responded by filing a motion for reconsideration.
According to Garcia, the indictment will also help them in their ongoing investigation on the alleged rigging of the bidding for the 2016 elections. He said he created a panel to undertake the investigation.
“We are trying to determine how and who were involved in the (alleged) rigging of the bidding. Who were the officials involved, if any, and whether the allegations are really true,” he added.
Garcia earlier accused a foreign company of being involved in the bribery allegations, which he has vehemently denied.
On Friday, the US Department of Justice reported that Bautista and three Smartmatic employees were indicted for their roles in an alleged bribery and money laundering scheme to retain and secure business related to the 2016 polls.
The personnel of Smartmatic supposedly caused at least $1 million in bribes to be paid to Bautista sometime between 2015 and 2018.
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