THE DAMAGE has been done. While Smartmatic International and Total Information Management Corp. (TIM) have patched up their quarrel, and the Commission on Elections can now say that automation of the coming 2010 elections can proceed apace, the wrangling has raised troubling questions about our government and how big public deals are concluded. These are questions, furthermore, that highlight, yet again, the Arroyo administration’s sorry record when it comes to public contracts.

Normally whatever acts of omission or commission are attributed to the Palace shouldn’t spill over to taint the constitutionally independent Comelec’s activities. But both sides in the Smartmatic-TIM quarrel broadly hinted at the intrusion of a personality so highly placed as to leave no room for doubt that the intent of allegation about some mysterious meetings was to indicate the proximity of that mystery man to the President’s boudoir.

The finger-pointing – really, public relations by means of insinuations – ended up planting quite firmly in the public mind that even if no one explicitly stated the identity of that mystery man, there was also a shady cast of prominent people with ties to the present dispensation to take into account, too. If there wasn’t an invisible hand, there was something worse: many invisible hands trying to pull the strings from behind the scenes.

We must say the instinct of Comelec Chairman Jose Melo not to act as nanny to the feuding parties as all this was happening was correct, but he was prevailed upon by Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer to intercede. This was a decision fraught with peril, in and of itself, precisely because the Comelec is supposed to be independent and Melo had staked his reputation on restoring the constitutional commission, which is at its lowest point since the Marcos years.

Instead, the Comelec had to go beyond its mandate of holding a public bidding to acting as governess to the two warring partners in the consortium that won the bidding to automate the elections. Whichever party was acting in bad faith or in aid of extortion, as fiercely alleged by both parties concerning each other, the public is now left with the two suddenly agreeing, once more, to become one. So much for their fierce denunciations and concerns!

The whole thing has been yet another pathetic demonstration of how immature, in many respects, the business and government environment is in our country. Any reasonable person would have assumed both partners would have known what they were getting into and ironed out any disagreements before even embarking on the bidding to automate the 2010 polls. And once having reached an agreement and set up a partnership, to abide by their agreement or at the very least, find ways to resolve their differences without dragging the country to the brink of having to consider dire scenarios.

If Newsbreak’s June 30 and July 3 stories are any guide, at the heart of the two partners’ disagreements was the 60-40 split between TIM and Smartmatic, with TIM assuming, on paper, the lion’s share of participation, and thus, risk, and ultimately, profits, but that in reality it was Smartmatic funding most of the bid, with the two possibly finding ways to get around the anti-dummy law.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the intricacies of the financial aspects of the consortium aside, what the public saw was a very public fight, and played as if for the highest stakes – which are, indeed, high, in peso or even dollar terms, but highest of all was something the Comelec chairman was aware of when he appealed to the warring partners to resolve their differences. At stake is a fundamental component of our democratic project: the elections.

We can only await with bated breath the conclusion of the remaining documentation necessary by next Friday. Melo has appealed to media not to pry further into the circumstances surrounding TIM’s decision to stick it out with Smartmatic. We can only suggest that a truce may be prudent for now, but that it would be ultimately harmful to the Comelec and the country if allegations, which were particularly fierce on TIM’s part that an invisible hand was trying to stick a finger into its corporate pie remain unresolved.