EDITORIAL - Lax screening

You know authorities need to improve the screening of candidates when even a man wanted for terrorism manages to seek public office. Fortunately for the people of Basilan, suspected Abu Sayyaf member Umar Ippong lost in his bid for a council seat in the town of Sumisip.

Ippong was arrested together with 14 other Abu Sayyaf suspects last Saturday following an encounter with the military in Tabiawan, Basilan. Military officers, who said he ran under the name Uman Ippong, recognized the losing candidate from campaign posters. Ippong was allegedly one of the Abu Sayyaf bandits who took over a hospital in Lamitan in 2001 as they held on to hostages taken from an island resort in Palawan. The bandits and their hostages, including three Americans, managed to escape as the military laid siege to the hospital. Amid rumors of a payoff, military officers faced a congressional investigation for the escape.

The case of Ippong should lead to improved coordination between the Commission on Elections and security agencies. The Armed Forces of the Philippines has posters with the names, aliases, photographs and other identifying details of wanted bandits. Did the Comelec official in charge of Basilan miss the AFP alert for Ippong? The case of Ippong should prompt the AFP and law enforcement agencies to provide the Comelec with an updated list, with photographs, of wanted individuals before the start of the period for the filing of certificates of candidacies.

Comelec personnel might have been preoccupied with many other matters, especially as they prepared for the country’s first automated elections, to bother with a close scrutiny of candidates for councilor. But the Comelec has also been lax in screening candidates for many other positions. It has given groups seeking congressional representation through the party list too wide a berth. Sometimes it seems that the Comelec has allowed every individual with a loose screw to run for public office. Now add to those loose screws wanted terrorists.