‘Absentee voting bill may be illegal’

The proposed law on absentee voting could be unconstitutional because its implementation is primarily vested in the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) with the Commission on Elections merely playing a secondary role, Comelec officials said yesterday.

Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos told a Senate subcommittee on finance headed by Sen. Francis Pangilinan that both the House and Senate versions of the proposed absentee voting law give a primary role to the DFA.

He said that this could be in contravention to the Constitution, which states that the Comelec should be primarily responsible for the conduct of all elections.

Comelec Commissioner Rufino Javier said that there would be a legal problem if the absentee voting law would be implemented by an agency that is directly under the Office of the President rather than by an independent body.

"The foreign affairs secretary is the alter ego of the President; all ambassadors are presidential appointees, so they could be presumed to be partisan," added Javier, a former congressman for three terms representing Pasig City.

He maintained that the proposed absentee voting law would be unconstitutional if the Comelec would not be the one to implement it.

Abalos said they are proposing the creation of an office of the election attaché, similar to the trade or information attaché, in every embassy to reassert the primary role of the Comelec in implementing the proposed law.

The Comelec proposed a budget of P1.2 billion for next year to prepare the body for the implementation of the proposed absentee voting law. Abalos said the P200 million would be for the election attaches and two personnel to be assigned in 19 Philippine embassies.

Pangilinan and Sen. Joker Arroyo both agreed with the poll officials that the proposed measure would be of doubtful constitutionality unless the Comelec was lead implementor.

Arroyo warned that the proposed measure might even go to the Supreme Court if Comelec would play only second fiddle to the DFA.

Pangilinan noted that the P1.2-billion budget for absentee voting implementation proposed by the Comelec is not included in the 2003 national budget because there is no law yet.

He said that it would most probably be included in a supplemental budget. He voiced support for the proposed fielding of election attaches abroad to cure possible constitutional infirmities of the absentee voting law.

Pangilinan cited reports that the DFA wants to handle the P1-billion budget for absentee voting and said that the budget should appropriately pertain to the Comelec.

Abalos said that in addition to the 57 Comelec personnel they want to assign abroad, they would also be deputizing 1,333 members of non-government organizations abroad to help in the conduct of absentee voting.

The poll body has recommended a budget of P205 million for the honoraria of the 1,333 deputized persons. Each deputy will be paid a $200 per diem for five days.

Abalos said the poll body would be renting voting and counting machines abroad, as he expressed confidence in the reliability of the machines.

Meanwhile, Abalos warned yesterday that the poll modernization program would be in jeopardy because of the failure of the Department of Budget and Management to reimburse the P1 billion it took out of the modernization program to fund elections.

Abalos explained that because the national government had no money for the barangay-Sangguniang Kabataan elections and the elections at the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the Comelec was authorized to use P1 billion out of its P2.9-billion budget for poll modernization.

He said that the DBM must reimburse this amount, and then add P1.65 billion more to realize automated election in the 2004 presidential elections.