MANILA -- Dwelling on the ?Hello Garci? scandal would only divert the Commission on Elections? (Comelec) attention from its target to automate the 2010 polls, its newly appointed chairman warned on Sunday.

Retired Supreme Court justice Jose A.R. Melo, who was appointed to the position late last week, however, clarified that he was not altogether disregarding the issue.

?If we could only forget the issue for the moment to focus on the election preparations, but we could not just do that,? Melo told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in a phone interview.

?If there are people who should be prosecuted, then we would go after them,? he added.

Melo admitted that he had yet to update himself on the scandal's present status.

The ?Hello Garci? tape contains wiretapped phone conversations between President Macapagal-Arroyo and then Election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano on her one-million-vote lead in the 2004 presidential election.

Melo also said that the case of former Maguindanao election supervisor Lintang Bedol did not deserve the Comelec's full attention. Bedol has disappeared after Comelec affirmed its verdict citing him in indirect contempt for his failure to appear before the Comelec and explain allegations of massive fraud in his province during the 2007 May elections.

?Bedol is a nobody who could not derail the Comelec?s responsibilities and operations,? Melo declared.

He added that as far as he was concerned, the government was still on the hunt for Bedol.

The Comelec ordered the arrest of Bedol on Oct. 23 after rejecting his appeal to reverse a previous verdict finding him guilty of indirect contempt and sentencing him to up to six months in jail.

The Comelec set Bedol free in August on a P15,000 bail while his case was on appeal.

The contempt case arose from Bedol?s failure to heed Comelec summons to appear during hearings on missing election documents deemed to be decisive in determining the results of the senatorial races in the May 14 polls.

Melo further said that the Comelec would focus on restoring the Commission?s credibility through ?honest-to-goodness? efforts to implement election automation by 2010.

?The best measure of credibility could be seen when election time comes,? Melo said, adding that he could not blame the skeptics for thinking that the Comelec's image was tarnished in the last three years following the 2004 elections.

?Credibility could not be easily restored, but we will do our best to do so,? Melo said.

Melo has served a total of 40 years in government service, beginning his government career as an executive assistant in the Malacañang legal office during the term of President Diosdado Macapagal, the President?s father.

He spent 23 years in the judiciary and was appointed associate justice of the Supreme Court in 1992, from which he retired in 2002.

Before his appointment to the high court, he served at the reorganized Court of Appeals from 1986 to 1992, and before that, at the Intermediate Appellate Court.

As presiding justice of the Court of Appeals, he held the record for having a zero backlog of cases.