ShareThisMANILA – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has dropped the One-Time Carbon (OTC) Paper Supply Inc. as the supplier of the stamp pads to be used for the Oct. 25 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) polls.
In an interview, Atty. Ferdinand Rafanan, head of the Comelec’s Bids and Awards Committee (BAC), said Thursday the company failed to comply with the requirement for the P15.6-million project.
He noted that a pad should produce 600 clear fingerprints, but the sample submitted by OTC only recorded slightly more than 500 fingerprints.
Atty. Rafanan
“Dapat sa isang pad, 600 clear fingerprints ang mabubuo mo. Naubusan ng ink, 520 pa lamang,” he said.
Rafanan said the OTC was declared earlier as the company that offered the lowest calculated bid for the supply of the stamp pads, but because it failed to comply with the requirement, the project was given to the second lowest bidder, the Neutron Construction and Marketing Inc.
He said that Neutron, during the tests conducted Thursday morning, surpassed the required number of fingerprints per pad, when it produced 624 marks.
The Comelec would need 520,000 pieces of stamp pad for the polls this month.
It can be recalled that the OTC made the headlines prior to the May 10 polls after it was involved in the botched ballot secrecy folder contract worth P690 million.
The project did not push through after the poll body found out that the contract was overpriced.
Rafanan said the firm was allowed to participate in the procurement process for the Oct. 25 Barangay and SK polls since it has not been blacklisted.