The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Thursday decided to suspend the contract for the acquisition of more than 300,000 padlocks that will be used for safekeeping 77,000 ballot boxes in the first automated polls this May.

Comelec Commissioner Armando Velasco said the contract, which was awarded to Neutron Construction and Marketing Corp., was suspended by the commission en banc until the issues among contesting bidders are resolved.

Velasco said Neutron's rival and another bidder Atlanta Industries Corp., through a petition before the poll body, raised questions on the bidding process for the padlock contract.

“Atlanta is questioning the decision of the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) after it selected Neutron as the winning bidder when it failed to conform to the (required) specifications,” he said.

Based on their respective contracts, Neutron will provide for some 300,000 padlocks at P18 million while Atlanta tendered a bid of P45 million. They are both required to meet a certain specification as to the thickness of the padlock.

But Comelec's BAC chose Neutron as the winning bidder over Atlanta for its lower specification of 5.5mm as against their 6mm. Other bidders of the contract are Unlimited Resource Group and Trojan Marketing.

“The bidder (Atlanta) claimed they can lower the price (of the padlocks) if they were only told to do so even as it doesn't conform to the specifications of BAC,” he said.

In a separate development, the Comelec is weighing its option which among the political parties to be declared as the dominant majority party following the series of defections involving members of the ruling Lakas-Kampi-CMD party.

Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said they may have to evaluate the status of Lakas-Kampi-CMD as the dominant party based on these recent political developments.

“This is for evaluation… This will be factored by the department for purposes of determining what are the dominant majority and minority party,” Sarmiento said, adding that they may promulgate the resolution on the dominant parties by next week.

The Election Records and Statistics Department (ERSD), headed by Director Ester Villaflor, is the one in-charge of evaluating the parties applying for the dominant majority and minority parties