Cotabato canvassing slowed down by bickerings

COTABATO CITY — For the third time, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has formed a board of canvassers to oversee the tabulation of results of the last elections here, after the process was made slow by bickerings between lawyers of re-electionist Mayor Muslimin Sema and the opposition candidate Estrellita Juliano.

The latest board, which will be chaired by lawyer Lintang Bedol, provincial election supervisor of Sultan Kudarat, assumed the functions of three lawyers of the Comelec, who voluntarily dissolved their group, packed their things and left for their respective regions after counsels of one of the two rival camps insinuated during deliberations that they were siding with the other camp.

Lawyer Clarita Callar, Comelec Regional Director in Central Mindanao, said Bedol and the members of the new board will continue with the canvassing of votes for local positions here at the Enlisted Personnel’s Club inside Camp Siongco, the command headquarters of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division in nearby Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao.

It was because of the tension spawned by party misunderstandings on procedures and other technical concerns that the poll body decided to transfer to Camp Siongco the venue of the canvassing from its original site at the session hall of the city council here. — John Unson