Comelec rift widens; Bautista belies charges

MANILA, Philippines - The trip to Japan of Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Andres Bautista may have been unauthorized and should be investigated, one of the poll body’s commissioners said.

In an interview over the weekend, Commissioner Rowena Guanzon said she has asked the Bureau of Immigration (BI) to investigate how Bautista was able to leave for Japan last week without travel authority from the Comelec.

Guanzon said civil servants traveling overseas are required to present a travel authority to BID personnel at the airport. “I have been wondering how the chairman was able to leave the country.

“I think this should be investigated. In case he used his personal passport, still the immigration should have not allowed him to leave if he did not have a travel authority,” she pointed out. 

Last Thursday, Bautista took his “privilege leave” to accompany his son to Tokyo from June 23 to 26. In a June 21 memorandum, Bautista assured acting Commission secretary Consuelo Diola that his was “a personal trip that will entail no cost to the commission.”

According to Guanzon, Commissioner Christian Robert Lim – being the most senior commissioner – used to sign Bautista’s travel authority but he sought to be relieved of this task in May.

With such responsibility no longer Lim’s, all commissioners should be signing Bautista’s travel authority as was the practice during the term of former Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr., Guanzon said.

She also accused Bautista of leaving without appointing any acting chairman. “So what’s the implication of that? No one is signing important transactions like the salary.”

Not true

For his part, Bautista belied Guanzon’s accusation in text messages from Japan. 

“I have travel authority issued pursuant to Executive Orders (EOs) 459 and 477. (The) Commission on Audit chair and the ombudsman, as head of agency, also issue their own travel authorities,” he said. 

The poll chief took note of this in his Jan. 21 memorandum to Diola.

The memorandum read:  “I, as head of agency, will be issuing my travel authority pursuant to Sec. 3 of EO No. 447 series of 1991 which, among others, states that ‘the members, officials and employees of aforementioned constitutional bodies shall henceforth submit their requests for permission to travel abroad to the heads of the commissions/office concerned.’”

The same memorandum said “this authority is further confirmed by Section 2 of Executive Order No. 459 series of 2005 which states ‘all other government officials and employees seeking authority to travel abroad shall seek approval from their respective heads of agency.’” 

Bautista also denied that there was no acting Comelec chairman while he was in Japan. “I referred to existing memos so senior commissioner is acting chair in my absence.” 

He added, “for matters that demand immediate and urgent action, relevant commission resolutions authorize certain officials to sign for and on behalf of the commission.”  

Drug addiction

As the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) officially closed its command center last Friday, its national chair Henrietta de Villa decried what she called rampant vote buying and selling in some areas during the last elections, an anomaly she likened to drug addiction.

She said the buying and selling of votes “form of electoral corruption – the father of all corruption which eats up the Filipino soul and blackens Philippine election.” With Evelyn Macairan