Aquino will appoint best candidate for Comelec chief–Palace

Comelec office. FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Malacañang assured that President Benigno Aquino III would consider the best candidate to replace Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Sixto Billantes once he retires in February 2015.

“The President always takes into consideration the best possible candidates for any vacancy in government,” Deputy Presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said on state-run radio.

When asked if Aquino would elect an insider as requested by the Comelec employees, Valte said the president is “cognizant of the call to appoint an inside.”

Rank-and-file employees of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) urged Aquino to consider appointing “insiders” as successors of retiring poll officials.

“The President considers the best interest of the agency and the people when it comes to the appointment,” she said.

Brillantes, who was not an insider, was a veteran election lawyer before he was appointed by Aquino to head the poll body.

Brillantes along with Commisioners Lucenito Tagle and Elias Yusoph will retire on February 2 next year.

Tagle was a retired Court of Appeals justice while Yusoph was a provincial prosecutor in Marawi City before they were appointed to Comelec by former president and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
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