Benipayo petition vs VRIS challenged

Four commissioners of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) urged the Supreme Court (SC) yesterday to junk a petition filed earlier by their boss, Chairman Alfredo Benipayo and two other commissioners seeking to stop execution of a lower court ruling on the controversial P6.5-billion Voters Registration and Identification System (VRIS).

In filing their own motion, Commissioners Luzviminda Tangcangco, Rufino Javier, Ralph Lantion and Mehol Sadain said Benipayo and Commissioners Resurreccion Borra and Florentino Tuason Jr. "acted with manifest bad faith when they filed the petition before the High Court Monday without informing or consulting the rest of the commissioners."

They asserted that filing of Benipayo’s petition was not authorized by the poll body working as a collegial entity, hence the manifestation should be denied.

The four commissioners also charged that Benipayo, Borra and Tuason showed bad faith by not informing the commission en banc that they have filed the 40-page petition the day before they discussed the VRIS issue and had agreed to continue deliberation "in a more intelligent and less passionate manner at the next en banc meeting."

The questioned petitioned, filed on Monday through the Office of the Solicitor General, asked the SC to restrain a Quezon City court ruling favoring the resumption of contract negotiations with Photokina Marketing Corp. in connection with the VRIS project.

Quezon City Regional Trial Court Judge Ma. Luisa Quijano-Padilla granted last month a petition for preliminary mandatory injunction filed by Photokina against the Comelec.

Tangcangco, Javier, Lantion and Sadain told the SC that they have already adopted an en banc resolution favoring the immediate resumption of negotiations with Photokina in compliance with the court order, with Sadain designated as official Comelec negotiator.

The four commissioners said their move was consistent with their original position that the VRIS project was a product of long and careful study by the poll body and that the bidding was completed without any legal impediments. They also insisted that the award to Photokina of the VRIS contract was valid and legal, and that the Comelec was bound to honor it.