Smartmatic, Bribery, and the Cost of Our Vote

The Smartmatic bribery indictment goes beyond a corporate scandal. It’s a reflection of how fragile our democracy becomes when corruption is treated like a cost of doing business inside the very institutions meant to protect our vote.

When federal prosecutors in Florida added Smartmatic and its parent SGO Corporation to the criminal indictment on October 16, 2025, they alleged a decade-long scheme that treated elections like a product you could buy with briefcases of cash.

The Price of Democracy: P180 Billion in Contracts and a Million-Dollar Kickback

Between 2015 and 2018, Smartmatic executives allegedly moved at least $1 million to Juan Andres Bautista, then COMELEC chair. In exchange, they secured more than $180 million in contracts to supply 90,000 voting machines for the 2016 elections. That election reshaped Philippine politics for years.

The mechanics were brazen. Prices for each machine were bumped by $10 to $50 to build a slush fund. Coded language covered the trail, along with fabricated contracts and loan agreements. The money moved through accounts across Asia, Europe, and the U.S., including Florida.

Five days after Bautista approved dropping VAT from 12% to 5% and cleared over $4 million in payments to Smartmatic, executives Roger Pinate and Jorge Vasquez initiated $1 million in transfers while in Florida. The timing speaks for itself.

The Man Who Fled: Juan Andres Bautista’s Fall From Grace

Bautista served as COMELEC chair from April 2015 to October 2017, overseeing one of our most consequential elections. Prosecutors say the bribe money helped purchase a two-bedroom condo in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights.

His downfall started at home. In August 2017, his estranged wife Patricia alleged he held more than ₱1 billion in unexplained wealth not declared in his SALN and that he received commissions via DivinaLaw, Smartmatic’s counsel, for “assisting the law firm’s clients with the Comelec.”

He was impeached 137-75-2 on October 11, 2017, hours after announcing his resignation. On November 21, 2017, he flew to the United States and never returned despite a Senate subpoena. He now faces money laundering charges in both Philippine and U.S. courts, a walking example of how the powerful often sidestep accountability.

The Questions We Still Avoid

What does a $1 million bribe say about the integrity of the 2016 procurement? COMELEC itself admitted the allegations cast a heavy shadow on protocols and public confidence. That’s putting it mildly.

Smartmatic handled the 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2022 elections here, with at least ₱25 billion in total contracts. If the 2016 process was tainted, who can say with certainty the others were clean? We’ve heard the complaints for years: malfunctions, suspicious glitches, transmission issues, and bidding rules bent to favor a single vendor.

A 2022 technical study out of Royal Holloway, University of London, examined the 2016 automated elections and found the system failed 5 of 8 trust-model properties. Transparency—especially around certification and source code review—was the weak point. They looked at 426 log files from 192 clustered precincts and reached one conclusion: lack of transparency kills trust.

Yet by June 2019, surveys showed 84% of voters had “big trust” in the automated process. That gap between technical reality and public perception is a vulnerability. We trusted a system we didn’t fully understand, run by a company now accused of bribing the very officials in charge of oversight.

The Political Timing Problem

The first indictment against individual executives landed in August 2024 under Biden’s DOJ. The move adding Smartmatic as a corporate defendant came in October 2025 under Trump’s DOJ.

Complication: on February 10, 2025, the White House issued an order pausing FCPA enforcement for 180 days and calling for a review of all ongoing cases. Even so, on April 9, 2025, the DOJ filed a notice saying it had reviewed this case and would proceed to trial. No details on the review, no explanation of the decision-making.

Smartmatic says powerful interests influenced the case despite its cooperation. Meanwhile, the company’s $2.7 billion defamation suit against Fox News is still in play. Fox points to the indictments and claims Smartmatic was already plagued by failure and controversy long before 2020. The irony writes itself: a firm suing over election lies now faces criminal charges tied to a foreign election scheme. Whether this represents justice or revenge depends on who’s watching—another problem for the rule of law.

From Smartmatic to Miru: Did We Fix Anything?

COMELEC disqualified Smartmatic from future bids in November 2023 to protect election integrity. The Supreme Court reversed this with finality in November 2024, but the ship had sailed—COMELEC had already awarded a ₱17.9 billion contract to Miru Systems for 2025.

Miru’s record doesn’t inspire confidence. From 2015 to 2017, it allegedly landed deals in Fiji, Ecuador, and El Salvador through a South Korean ODA arrangement worth about $4.4 million, granted directly without open bidding. Watchdogs here flagged failures in Congo and Iraq where Miru was involved; the company denied those claims.

In December 2023, Miru was initially disqualified over documentation issues. When bidding reopened in January 2024, six signaled interest but only Miru actually bid. A supposed competition with one runner. By October 2024, one joint-venture partner, St. Timothy Construction Corporation, withdrew due to potential conflicts of interest as one owner considered running in 2025.

That ₱17.9 billion deal became one of the most expensive election procurements we’ve had, awarded to a sole bidder many critics said made a joke of procurement rules. Some lawmakers urged COMELEC to reuse the existing vote-counting machines to save billions. COMELEC refused, citing past glitches.

We moved away from a provider accused of corruption toward one accused of incompetence. Progress, apparently.

The Larger Crisis: Why Corruption Survives—and What It Costs

The Smartmatic mess is a reflection of how corruption has become routine in public life. In many developing countries, weak enforcement means re-election incentives are expected to deter graft, but that approach fails when political systems reward loyalty over integrity.

Evidence from places like Afghanistan and Uganda shows monitoring technology can cut fraud by 60% and dirty counts by 25%, but only if leaders actually want those safeguards. Here, we’ve rarely demanded what builds trust: transparency, independent audits, real accountability.

As early as 2010, the National Democratic Institute observed that suspicion between rivals, distrust of authorities, and thin transparency corroded public confidence in our elections. Fifteen years later, the diagnosis still fits. We automated but never fixed the culture that lets corruption breathe.

When people stop believing the count, they stop believing the system. When powerful officials can leave the country instead of facing charges, the lesson is ugly: the law is for those without protection. And when billion-peso contracts go to sole bidders with shaky track records, “reform” turns into an expensive costume.

The Path Forward: Accountability or Impunity—Pick One

The U.S. case is heading toward trial. The executives face serious time—up to 25 years on the money-laundering side. For Smartmatic, a conviction could be existential: fines that match the $180 million benefit, debarment from U.S. contracts, reputational collapse.

What about here at home? Bautista is still out of reach. No other local officials have been charged, even though a scheme like this needs more than one pair of hands. There’s no comprehensive audit of 2016 to see whether corruption touched results. Cases at the Ombudsman linger without a clear finish line.

We punish the headline villain and ignore the system that made the crime possible. We blacklist one vendor, then run the same broken process for the next deal. We rage at bribes but barely touch how ₱25 billion in contracts piled up while transparency stayed weak.

This should be a turning point. It can be a demand for real reform—procurement with teeth, audits with independence, and accountability that doesn’t care about last names. My worry: it fades like the scandals before it, while the machine keeps humming.

A Warning for 2025 and Beyond

With Miru running 2025, every voter should be asking uncomfortable questions. What safeguards exist to stop the same playbook? How do we verify results beyond press releases? What happens if machines fail or data looks off?

We’ve spent ₱25 billion over 15 years on automation and can’t honestly say our elections are fully transparent and verifiable. We favored speed and convenience over proofs that ordinary people can check. We accepted vendor claims instead of demanding independent tests. We let procurement drift into a world where citizens have little leverage.

This case shows what happens when oversight is weak and consequences are light. Vendors will pay. Officials will sell. And the cycle keeps turning unless people insist on rules that actually bite.

Democracy isn’t just lining up and tapping a screen. It’s knowing the count is honest and the report is true. If we can’t promise that, everything built on top of it sits on sand.

Smartmatic has given us another opening to fix the basics. Either we push for accountability and real reform, or we swap logos and hope for the best while deals happen in the dark.

For the sake of our vote, I’m choosing accountability. History says this country often doesn’t. That’s the part that stays with me.

SOURCES:

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