Comelec chief's melodramatic exit

The cat is now out of the bag. Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Jose Melo will make an early retirement on Jan. 31 next year, or four years ahead of his scheduled retirement. Melo’s term of office is supposed to end in February 2015. But he decided to cut short his fixed term of seven years in office as provided for in our country’s 1987 Constitution.

Now, 78 years old Melo was appointed to the Comelec in February 2008 by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. This was three years after the poll body was much discredited by the infamous “Hello, Garci” scandal that marred the outcome of the May 2004 presidential elections.

The scandal was coined after ex-Comelec commissioner Virgilio Garcillano was caught in a wiretapped telephone conversation with ex-President Arroyo.

Melo took over from former Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr., who had to retire early also before his full term ended in February 2008. Abalos opted for early retirement in October 2007 after he figured in the scandal-rocked $329-million national broadband network (NBN) government contract with the ZTE Corp. of China.

Melo served as associate justice of the Supreme Court (SC) starting 1992 until he retired in 2002. Actually, Melo was first called back to serve the government by ex-President Arroyo on Aug. 21, 2006 when she created a special investigating body to look into the growing incidence of extra-judicial and political killings in the country that have claimed the lives of a number of militant activists and journalists as well. The probe body became popularly known as the Melo Commission.

In their final report submitted in February 2007 to ex-President Arroyo, the Melo Commission concluded that most of the extra-judicial killings were instigated by the military but found no proof directly linking the murder of activists to a “national policy” by the Arroyo administration as claimed by left-wing groups. This, of course, did not please the leftists.

The former President tapped anew Melo for a similar seemingly impossible mission – to redeem the Comelec from the depths of infamy where it has been dragged down by the “Hello, Garci” scandal.

The choice of Melo as new Comelec chairman was widely accepted by even the most bitter Arroyo critics. Melo continued his career in government service in the Comelec that now spanned close to 40 years.

It was during Melo’s stewardship of the Comelec that the long planned automation to replace the country’s manual system of voting and canvassing of votes finally took off. After several failed attempts in the past, we had our first-ever automated election system (AES) last May 10 that installed our country’s new set of government officials led by President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.

A little birdie chirped that Melo’s desire to retire early was precipitated by rumors circulating at the Comelec from detractors of the automated polls he had successfully steered during his watch. The poll body is scheduled to make a final decision this December whether or not the Comelec would take the option to acquire the precinct count optical machines (PCOS) that were procured from Smartmatic and were used in our country’s first automated elections.

This involves a total amount of P2.302 billion, the funding of which is available in the Congress-approved P11 billion automated elections budget.   Comelec already saved as much as half of the total budget when Smartmatic implemented the AES project at a contract price of P7.1 billion. The Comelec still owes Smartmatic about P300 million that would be paid after final audit of the AES is completed.

The Comelec has to make a decision as soon as possible amid debates whether the poll body would continue with the lease contract with Smartmatic. Or choose the more cost-effective studies showing it would be more prudent to purchase load, stock and barrel the AES of Smartmatic that our country have already used in the last May 10 elections.

The Comelec leased 82,000 PCOS that are currently stored in the Smartmatic warehouse in Cabuyao, Laguna. The same equipment and technology would be readily deployable in time for the next scheduled elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) in 2014. The same PCOS machines and technology could still be used all the way to the next presidential elections in 2016.

Melo’s critics, regular Comelec bashers, Smartmatic rivals in the business, and those who have other AES contracts to offer certainly would not want this to happen. And the best way to stop the Comelec from making the decisive move is to stir the rumor mills.

Melo hated very much rumors of these sort at this late stage of his untainted career in public service. “So he decided to pursue his retirement plan,” a close aide of Melo said.

Melo admitted that he alerted Malacañang Palace about his early retirement plans a few days after President Aquino’s installation in office last June 30. He relayed this notice to Department of Budget and Management Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad to enable the Palace to start looking for his replacement as Comelec chief. Melo reiterated his notice of retirement to a common friend with Executive Secretary Paquito “Jojo” Ochoa.

But Melo noted he got no feedbacks from the Palace after that. He got the opportunity to personally relay his retirement plan to President Aquino himself on Aug. 24 when the Chief Executive called for a rare meeting at the Palace to consult Comelec about the issue of whether or not to postpone the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections.

The Comelec chief reiterated his desire to retire in a chance meeting on Nov. 16 with the President, during a party of Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima where Abad and Ochoa were also there. “I told him (President) that I will stay on until January 31st to give time to my successor to prepare for the ARMM elections,” Melo quoted his conversation with the President.

If he stays on to finish his term, Melo cited, he would be 83 years old. By that time, Melo wisecracked, he might not be able to even walk up the stairs to go to his office at the eighth floor of the Palacio del Gobernador building in Intramuros, Manila.

There is, of course, an elevator at the Comelec building. But the Comelec chief was just being melodramatic about his desire to exit this early with his head held up high.