4 Comelec execs oppose confirmation of colleagues

Four commissioners of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) filed yesterday a new opposition to three Comelec appointees who are seeking the confirmation by the Commission on Appointments (CA).

In their joint sworn opposition filed with the CA, the commissioners, who comprise the Comelec majority, revealed new alleged irregularities committed by ad-interim appointees Chairman Alfredo Benipayo and Commissioners Resurreccion Borra and Florentino Tuason Jr.

In their statement, Commissioners Rufino Javier, Luzviminda Tancangco, Ralph Lantion and Mehol Sadain said the three appointees had once again disregarded the Comelec’s collegial nature to force through their version of the implementing rules on the special registration for the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) polls.

The four commissioners said the three appointees had rammed through their faulty resolution even before Congress had passed the law setting the SK and barangay polls on July 15.

The latest irregularity followed efforts by leaders of the major political parties and President Arroyo to smoothen relations between the incumbent commissioners and the three appointees.

Last month, the majority group had already filed an opposition with the CA to the Benipayo group’s confirmation, saying the commissioner’s bloc had consistently failed to observe collegiality in the operations of the constitutional body.

The four commissioners said the Benipayo group had unilaterally made decisions that should have been decided by the en banc. In Benipayo’s case, they said these included his purchase of a luxury van for his own use, unlawful appointments and transfers of key Comelec officials, refusal to promulgate duly signed en banc resolutions, and failure to submit the Comelec’s proposed budget for approval by the en banc.

The four said they were opposing the three appointees’ confirmation anew "for their irregular act of signing a resolution (on the special SK registration) based on a legislative act that was not yet passed into law; attempting to compel the undersigned Commissioners in joining the said resolution, and failing this, disseminating the resolution to the election officers nationwide, thereby causing confusion among the election officers, the youth registrants and the agencies involved in the SK registration."

Ironically, the three appointees were eventually forced to abandon their resolution, following complaints from youth representatives and other agencies. Thus, the en banc commission on April 23 issued new rules to govern the SK registration based on the recommendation of the majority group for the registration to be conducted at the barangay level.

"This does not mitigate the seriousness of the offense the Chairman and the two Commissioners have committed, but should instead prove that the four undersigned Commissioners were right all along in insisting that en banc resolutions should always be deliberated and signed with the requisite legal basis, in this case, RA 9164."

The four commissioners noted that RA 9164 resetting the barangay and SK elections to July 15 and calling for the special registration for the youth aged 15 to below 18 for the SK polls was enacted into law on March 19.

But even before this, Benipayo in the March 12 en banc meeting had urged the incumbent commissioners to sign his prepared resolution on the implementing rules. The majority group refused to sign the draft since they "wanted a full deliberation on the same, and subsequent signing after full deliberation of the enacted law."

However, the three appointees chose to go ahead and sign their draft rules on March 14 for distribution throughout the Comelec and to other agencies concerned with the SK registration.

The four commissioners in their opposition said they had called for an en banc meeting to discuss the implementing rules after Congress passed RA 9164, but the Benipayo group ignored their summons. Instead, Benipayo and Tuason left for Rome and the US on a public consultation tour, and left Borra as the Comelec’s OIC.