9-8-2024 (MANILA) Andres “Andy” Bautista, the former chairman of the country’s election commission, has been indicted by a US federal grand jury in Florida. The charges, announced on Thursday, allege that Bautista accepted bribes from a company supplying voting machines for the 2016 Philippine elections.
The 60-year-old Bautista now faces serious legal consequences, including one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and three counts of international laundering of monetary instruments, according to a statement released by the US Justice Department.
The indictment extends beyond Bautista, implicating three executives from the voting machine company in what prosecutors describe as an “alleged bribery and money laundering scheme to retain and obtain business related to the 2016 Philippine elections”. While the company remains unnamed in the Justice Department’s statement, one of the indicted executives, Roger Alejandro Pinate Martinez, is identified as a co-founder of Smartmatic.
The charges allege that between 2015 and 2018, Pinate, along with Jorge Miguel Vasquez and others, orchestrated the payment of at least US$1 million in bribes to Bautista. Both Pinate and Vasquez face charges of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, in addition to money laundering charges.
This case has drawn attention to Smartmatic, a company that has been at the centre of controversy in the Philippines. Despite being banned from bidding on election contracts by the Philippines Commission on Elections last year, the country’s highest court overturned this ban in April.
Bautista, who led the election commission from 2015 to 2017, was responsible for awarding Smartmatic a substantial US$199 million contract to provide 94,000 voting machines for the 2016 presidential election, which saw Rodrigo Duterte rise to power. In response to the indictment, Bautista has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, stating on social media that he “did not ask for nor receive any bribe money from Smartmatic or any other entity”.
Smartmatic, for its part, has confirmed that two of its employees have been indicted. In a statement, the company announced that the accused employees have been placed on immediate leaves of absence, while emphasising that “no voter fraud has been alleged and Smartmatic is not indicted”.
This case takes on added significance given Smartmatic’s ongoing legal battles with Fox News and allies of former US President Donald Trump over false claims about the 2020 US election.
