Editorial - Comelec at fault in Compostela

The problems of local governance in the municipality of Compostela can be blamed on no one else but the Comelec, both for a highly unusual and questionable action, and then for taking forever to resolve the complications of such action.

The problem began when the Comelec proclaimed the winners of local elective positions in the last election and then suspended its own proclamation when a losing candidate filed a protest against the results.

Normally, under these and many other similar circumstances, the Comelec would have respected its own proclamation and just let the protest run its due course wherever it may have been filed. 

If the protest failed, the proclaimed winners would have continued discharging their duties without any disruptions. On the other hand, if the protest prospered, then the next thing to do was strip the proclaimed winners and let the winning protester assume office.

But what the Comelec did – proclaim a set of winners then suspended it to await the resolution of a protest – resulted in a vacuum of governance in the town, to the detriment of its innocent residents.

The municipality of Compostela was left without any leaders, forcing the Department of the Interior and Local Government to send its highest official in the region to sit as acting mayor. But with no mandate from the people, the caretaker can only do so much, and gingerly at that.

The Comelec either completely forgot, or mysteriously ignored the fact, that protests and all other forms of litigation in this country can take forever to resolve, that even if they are resolved at one level, they can be elevated to the next, and the next, and so forth and so on.

The Comelec did not see that because of its inexplicable action that prompted the whole mess, which set in motion a notoriously interminable process, it dissolved the mandate given by the people of Compostela and deprived them of the services of their mandated leaders.