EDITORIAL - Comelec caused the chaos in Compostela

The chaos that is now Compostela would not have happened if the Commission on Elections did not commit the grievous mistake of suspending the proclamation of winning officials in the municipality.

Take note that the Comelec itself already proclaimed the winners, based on its own determination of the results of the May 10 elections. To suspend its own proclamation because a losing candidate has raised questions about the same results is a recipe for disaster.

 It is as if the Comelec did not believe in its own self. By reversing itself, no matter how temporarily, it only succeeded in undermining its own integrity and credibility. And having lost integrity and credibility, the Comelec will now be hard-pressed to reassert its authority.

 It would have been less contentious if the Comelec did not proclaim any winners. Then no one would have the right, nor the temerity, to assert a claim to an office to which no one has been proclaimed.

 Unfortunately, and quite mysteriously, the Comelec went against the norm of proclaiming winners and just let losing candidates file their protests. Only when these protesting candidates prove their case beyond any doubt will the earlier proclamations be reversed.

 There is logic and practical benefit in proclaiming a winner. Every contest has a winner. The probability of a tie in an election, while it has happened, is very remote. In the case of Compostela, it is clear there was a winner, regardless of whichever way it went.

 The Comelec itself saw there were winners. Otherwise it would not have gone ahead and proclaimed them. To be sure, losing candidates have the right to protest. But a protest can be addressed at another time and at a different venue.

 Reversing itself prematurely, even before it has looked into a protest, is unfair to everybody. It deprives those it already proclaimed of the right to assume office. And it gives false hopes to protesting candidates that they have a case even before hearings could start.

 And now that it has a time bomb in its hands, the Comelec has suddenly become deathly quiet. If only it did not act in haste. Now it has learned the hard way that there is a whale of a difference between acting expeditiously and acting hastily.