By Fel V. Maragay

The P11.3-billion budget that that was approved by Congress is only for the lease of voting and counting machines and related expenses for the 2010 elections; the government will have to allocate separate funding for similar high-tech process in subsequent elections.

Senator Rodolfo Biazon said yesterday this was made clear by Commission on Elections Chairman Jose Melo when he and other Comelec officials faced the Senate committee of the whole before approving the supplemental budget shortly at dawn Thursday.

?The P11.3 billion is not going to be used to purchase the automated system. It is going to be used to rent the system, not for every election but only for the election of 2010,? Biazon told Standard Today.

Melo said the Comelec will rent 80,000 electronic voting machines to be distributed nationwide at P102,000 per unit.

The Comelec opted to rent, instead of purchasing the equipment upon the advice of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Automated Elections. The decision partly stemmed from the assessment that it will not be wise to buy the automated voting machines because they may be rendered obsolete after a brief span of time due to the rapid advancements in information technology.

During the August 2008 election in the Autonomous Region elections, the Direct Recording Electronic and Optical Mark Reader voting machines used by the Comelec were merely leased from suppliers.

Melo also told the senators that the P11.3-billion budget does not include expenses for personal services. The poll body will deploy around 480,000 personnel to operate the automated machines.

Another P2 billion will be needed for the allowances of election personnel who will man the machines, Biazon said.

Senators Francis Escudero and Aquilino Pimentel Jr. have been pressing the Comelec to purge the voters? list of flying voters and double registrants by purchasing voters registration machines using the biometric system which may require an additional P1 billion.