The Supreme Court (SC) declared valid Tuesday the P7.2- billion election automation contract signed by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) with the Smartmatic Corp.-Total Information Management.

In a ruling reached after Tuesday’s full court session, the SC dismissed the petition filed by the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) that challenged the validity of the contract.

It was reported that 11 justices voted on the validity of the contract while three justices dissented. One justice was on official leave.

As of 3 p.m. Tuesday, the decision has not yet been promulgated because the SC was still awaiting the opinions of some justices.

It was reported that Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno has given those justices until Thursday morning to turn in their opinions.

Earlier, Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera, also acting justice secretary, had told the SC there was no irregularity in the automation contract because the Comelec followed strictly the provisions of Republic Act No. 9369, the poll automation law.

Among other things, CCM claimed that the contract signed with Smartmatic-TIM violates RA 9369 for not conducting pilot testing of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines to be used in the automated elections.

But Devanadera said that RA 9369 that provides for automated election system (AES) does not require pilot testing as a condition to the automation of the 2010 elections.

She pointed out that the phrase “pilot testing” was not used in RA 9369 since the law’s provision merely states that for the regular national and local elections, the machines "shall be used in at least two highly urbanized cities and two provinces...."

"Quite glaringly, too, the provision (in the law) does not state that the use of the AES is necessary or is a condition precedent to the conduct of automated elections in 2010. Had legislators intended that a 'pilot testing' be mandatory, they could have categorically expressed the same in a language that is clear and straightforward.

After all, text is an index of intention," Devanadera said.

"The only condition imposed by Congres in RA 9369 for the automation of the 2010 elections is that the AES to be procured must have demonstrated capability and must have been successfully used in a prior electoral exercise here or abroad," she said.

She stressed that the provisions of the automation law were full complied with by the Comelec because the machines were subjected to strict technical evaluation and were certified to have been used successfully in previous electoral exercises.

The solicitor general explained that in the 2008 elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the Comelec used the counting center optical scan (CCOS), a system that uses the optical mark reader (OMR), the same techonoloy as the PCOS machines of Smartmatic-TIM.

At the same time, Devanadera said that during the ARMM election, it was found and established that the OMR is the most suited technology for automated elections in the Philippines.

She added that the system for the 2010 elections is made even better with the adoption of the PCOS that allows the counting, consolidations, and canvassing of votes at the precinct level.