Tancangco posts bail before arrest warrant served

Even before a warrant for her arrest was served, former election commissioner Luzviminda Tancangco posted bail before the Sandiganbayan yesterday on charges of graft.

Tancangco, the former chairwoman of the Commission on Elections (Comelec)’s bidding committee, was charged by the Ombudsman with approving a P6.5-billion voters’ identification card system in 2000 amid financial constraints by the poll body.

The Sandiganbayan’s first division headed by Presiding Justice Teresita Leonardo-de Castro issued the warrant for Tancangco’s arrest and recommend bail of P30,000.

Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo said Tancangco had been the subject of a complaint by the National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel), which pointed out that the retired Comelec commissioner had approved the voter’s ID proposal despite the meager allocation of P1.2 billion for the Voters Registration and Identification System (VRIS) project. This amounted to a budget overrun of 500 percent.

Tancangco was later charged before the Sandiganbayan with giving "unwarranted benefits" to Photokina Marketing Corp., a private firm tasked to print the voters’ IDs.

The Ombudsman said there was "manifest partiality" in the case since Tancangco made "no objection" to the mandatory injunction issued by a Quezon City court that had ordered the Comelec and Photokina to resume negotiations.

Photokina, for its part, filed a damage suit against the Comelec after most of the poll officials rejected the proposal Tancangco was pushing.

Photokina won its case in the lower court, but the decision was reversed after the Comelec elevated the case to the Supreme Court.

Namfrel officials led by Jose Concepcion and Guillermo Luz filed the complaint against Tancangco. They went on to lobby before Congress to have the former Comelec official impeached.

Namfrel blamed Tancangco for the failure of the automated counting in the May 2001 polls.

The election watchdog likewise complained that Tancangco "prioritized and devoted her efforts to promoting an overly sophisticated VRIS project." — Delon Porcalla