The Commission on Elections' Special Bids and Awards Committee or SBAC has invited prospective bidders to submit bid documents for the second bidding for the lease of Full Automation System with Transparency Audit/Count or FASTrAC for the 2025 midterm elections.

Aside from private companies, the Comelec anticipates observers from the Commission on Audit Resident Auditor, Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting or PPCRV, National Citizen's Movement for Free Elections or NAMFREL, Legal Network for Truthful Elections or Lente, Democracy Watch and Participate PH to attend the bidding.

Meanwhile, election watchdog Democracy Watch Philippines, which is also invited to attend the bidding, urged the Comelec to review the track record of the primary lone bidder in the procurement of the new automated election system or AES for the 2025 national and local elections.

In a Facebook post, the watchdog expressed its worry regarding the involvement of South Korean firm Miru Systems Company Limited, highlighting the company's alleged recent "catastrophic failures" and "questioned" projects in Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"We urge Comelec to give Miru's track record a thorough once-over as part of its due diligence, as it should with all suppliers. It might want to investigate the company's alleged links to controversies in Congo and Argentina," Democracy Watch Philippines said.

"Such concerns over hacking vulnerabilities and vote manipulation are so grave as to have prompted watchdog groups and independent experts to flag many fatal weaknesses in Miru's technology publicly," the group added.

The watchdog cited reports of Miru's technology malfunctioning, involving 70 percent of voting stations on day one of the recent elections in Iraq, which forced authorities to revert to manual count and caused widespread chaos.

It further noted that 45.1 percent of machines provided by Miru in Congo experienced malfunctions and technical issues, resulting in delayed voting and confusion among voters.

"We trust that the Comelec will raise these issues in the interest of ensuring the integrity of the 2025 elections. We cannot have counting machines failing at such a massive scale, as this would cause political instability in the country," Democracy Watch Philippines said.

"Before it's too late, we appeal to the Comelec to act with utmost prudence and only consider vendors that demonstrably uphold the values of a secure, transparent and genuinely credible Philippine election. Our very democracy is at stake. May wisdom and discernment reign in the procurement process," it added.