The Commission on Elections announced on Wednesday that the commission officially disqualified service provider Smartmatic from all procurements.
This was confirmed by Comelec chairman George Erwin Garcia, saying that Smartmatic cannot participate in all Comelec procurements.
"We disqualified Smartmatic to participate in all Comelec procurement," Garcia told reporters in a Viber message.
The chairman announced this after the weekly en banc session of the poll body.
"We have to maintain the integrity of our electoral process. For the country and for the people," Garcia added.
When asked if Smartmatic can still appeal the decision in the Comelec, Garcia responded that the decision is in the hands of their lawyers.
"It is hard to say what their remedy should be. It's for their lawyers to decide," Garcia said.
The Comelec chief added that the Commission's decision was immediately executory.
"Our decision is immediately executory unless restrained," he added.
The petition against Smartmatic was filed by former Department of Information and Communications Technology chief Eliseo Mijares Rio Jr., Augusto Cadelina Lagman, Franklin Fayloga Ysaac, and Leonardo Olivera Odono on 15 June.
According to their allegations, Smartmatic "failed to comply with certain minimum system capabilities that resulted in serious and grave irregularities in the transmission and receipt of election returns" during the 2022 polls.
