Comelec execs up in arms vs Bautista

MANILA, Philippines - All six Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioners have accused Chairman Andres Bautista of “failure of leadership” over his alleged inaction and pronouncements on issues concerning the May 9 polls.

In an eight-page memorandum dated June 3, the commissioners asked Bautista to shed light on 17 issues before and after the elections, including the hacking of the Comelec website, alteration of the script in the transparency server and his statement on the postponement of this October’s barangay and youth elections.

“At the outset and with all due respect, the commissioners constitute the majority of the commission en banc, express our position of a failure of leadership of the Comelec,” they said. 

Commissioners Christian Robert Lim, Rowena Guanzon, Al Parreño, Luie Tito Guia, Sheriff Abas and Arthur Lim, who made a note that he signed with a “heavy heart,” signed the memorandum.

Arthur Lim noted that the memorandum is still “subject to validation of certain material facts and observance of due process and mutual courtesy.”  Parreño, Guia and Abas joined him.

The commissioners stressed that they came up with the memorandum “because of your (Bautista) request to reduce our concerns in writing, in lieu of discussing the grave concerns of the commissioners face-to-face.” 

Bautista, for his part, maintained that the success of the recent elections disproved the accusation of failed leadership. 

“I find the phrase ironic after the May 2016 elections which most believe was the fastest, most organized and successful elections in Philippine history. Was the holding of nationwide presidential debates after 24 years also a manifestation of a failure of leadership?” he texted from Japan.

He also criticized the commissioners for leaking the memorandum to the media last Thursday, the day he left for a vacation with his son.

Bautista said the issues were “old news” and that he has prepared a reply that was shown to many of them. 

Christian Lim said in a chance interview that they just wanted Bautista to explain and not to resign from his post. He added that the “majority of them still voted to give him the benefit of the doubt.” 

“Maybe, all we wanted are improvements in the commission,” Lim added. 

All the issues

The commissioners hit Bautista for his unilateral declaration of postponement of the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections scheduled in October; delay in the payment of teachers’ allowances; failure to immediately resolve the issue on Comelec website hacking; delay in the deliveries of manuals for the Board of Election Inspectors; and dismissal of the issue on the alteration of the script for the transparency server.

“The Comelec en banc is a collegial body, yet the chairman, in media interviews, made an assertion to have the barangay and SK elections postponed notwithstanding the fact that the commission en banc was never consulted on the matter,” they added.

This pronouncement, they claimed, “places the entire organization in bad light as being lazy” to conduct the synchronized polls even if there is sufficient budget left in the agency’s 2016 allocation.

They added that when the script of the transparency server being used by the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) for its quick count was altered, Bautista had “proceeded to dismiss (it) as merely cosmetic.”

In effect, they claimed, it was “already an exoneration without the proper investigation.”

According to the commissioners, Bautista also insinuated “public distrust” in the poll body when it failed to explain to the public “the legitimate concerns of the members of the commission who voted against mall voting” as they added that the poll chief “kept them in the dark as to the memorandum of agreements” signed by Bautista on voting inside malls.

Arlene Magtibay, senior vice president and general manager for commercial centers division of Robinsons Land Corp., earlier sent Comelec a letter “demanding payment for damages for election paraphernalia” they had prepared for the aborted mall elections.  – With Evelyn Macairan