Atty. Romulo Macalintal. INQUIRER.net file photo / Christia Marie Ramos
MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) should immediately stop the printing of official ballots for the May elections until it gets clarification from the Supreme Court (SC) on the status of cases where temporary restraining orders (TROs) were issued against the disqualification of nuisance candidates, election lawyer Romulo Macalintal said Wednesday.
“Comelec should have first advised the SC that it could no longer obey its restraining order before it started printing the ballots and should have asked for authority from the SC to proceed with the printing of the ballots despite the existence of said TROs on certain candidates,” Macalintal said in a statement.
“The Comelec has all the time to seek such clarification from the SC and advise the court of its plan to start printing the ballots instead of just saying that ‘the ballots are ready to go, so we went ahead’ which practically ignored the restraining orders of the court,” he added.
Macalintal said that “if Comelec could brag that it started printing the May 2022 ballots ‘way earlier than the May 2019 polls, then there is no reason why the Comelec could not get such clarification from the SC before it started printing the ballots for the May 2022 elections so as not to prejudice those parties protected by the SC’s TROs.”
The Comelec earlier explained that the election ballots did not include two aspirants for national positions who have secured TROs from SC because the ballots were already ready for printing before the restraining orders were issued.
The National Printing Office started printing the automated election ballots that will be used for the May national and local elections on Sunday, January 23. However, the ballot face released by the Comelec on Tuesday did not include the names of vice-presidential aspirant Wilson Amad and senatorial aspirant Normal Marquez.
Marquez, who was earlier declared a nuisance candidate by the Comelec, secured a restraining order from the SC against the Comelec decision on January 19. Amad, who had also been declared a nuisance candidate, also secured a restraining order from the High Court on January 20.