Comelec must answer for poll laws violated

My understanding of a constitutional body like the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is that of independence from all the three branches of the government — the Executive, Legislative and the Judiciary. This is why way back during the campaign for the 1987 Constitution I questioned the need for the Office of the President to chose the head of the Comelec, because that would put some kind of string attached to the position of Chairman of the poll body, especially that the President is usually the leader of his own political party.

But then this issue was never debated as it should have been because the folks who hammered the 1987 Constitution were not duly-elected to a Constitutional Convention (Concon). For instance, if I were a Concon delegate, I would have fought for the Judiciary to choose their own Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to ensure total independence from the other two branches of government. The President will merely sign a conforme. It ought to be the same with the Comelec.

Anyway back to the Comelec. I don’t know why Malacañang’s Abigail Valte had to issue a “Dare” to all critics of the Comelec… “To show proof of election irregularities rather than make generalized accusations that “hocus-pocus” have been committed to slow down the transmission of the votes.” I didn’t know that the Palace spokesman was also an extension of the Comelec? This only shows some kind of collusion between the Comelec and Malacañang. That statement should have come from Comelec!

Meanwhile other pundits have already written their “I told you so” articles about the PCOS machines, I hate to do a similar column. But the fact remains that the PCOS machines were the principal cause of the great many delays in the voting, some lasting as long as five hours… which got many impatient people leaving the precinct without voting. There were just so many PCOS machines that bogged down during the elections.

But the greater delays as everybody already knows is in the transmission, and as NAMFREL pointed out, 10 million votes were still missing as of Friday last week? So why is Malacañang so defensive for the Comelec? Of course Malacañang denies taking the cudgels for the Comelec… but we can read between the lines.

The fact remains that this Comelec under Chairman Sixto Brillantes have not been as transparent as we expect the Comelec to be. He has clearly forgotten that he too is a public servant and the Comelec serves the voters… and not political parties or politicians. Mind you, I am not alone in this assessment of the Comelec Chairman, which is why we must have reforms within the Comelec, reforms that were forgotten after the euphoria of the EDSA Revolt, after the computer programmers walked out of the PICC and trigged the EDSA Revolt.

If I had my way, I’d break down the Comelec into Independent Regional Electoral Commission according to Regions. The old Comelec would be abolished and a new Comelec will only be activated a year before the elections and will automatically end a month after the counting has ended. But then, it is foolish of me to make this suggestion to the Aquino regime where electoral reforms are not on their radar screen.

Meanwhile, we know too well that the Comelec failed to follow the law especially with regards to the safeguards or security measures of the PCOS machines, which was included by former senator Richard Gordon, the sponsor of the bill who unfortunately failed to get himself re-elected. When I met him in Cebu during the LIFE 2013 rally at the Plaza Independencia, Dick told me that win or lose…he’ll go after the Comelec on their use of the PCOS machines. I guess that strengthens the call by UP College of Law Prof. Harry Roque who is contemplating filing a case against the Comelec chairman to make him accountable for not giving the digital signatures after we voted.

Having the digital signatures would assure voters of the integrity of their vote. Come now, people who have bank accounts in an automated teller machine (ATM) know that before the machine gives you what you withdrawing, it will inform you or warn you that the machine cannot provide a receipt of this particular transaction. So if you still agreed to continue at least you know there was that warning. But not the PCOS machines… we never got any digital signature required by the law.

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Whether he wants it or not P-Noy must diffuse the tension between Taiwan and the Philippines due to the killing of a Taiwanese fisherman. In the past that Taiwanese fishing boats that fish in our waters always get arrested. But this is the first time that the Coast Guard fired on a fishing boat, which was totally unarmed, even if they were in Philippine waters. I hope P-Noy would resolve this matter soonest before things get any worse.

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