Guanzon tells pols: Don’t interfere with Comelec’s independence

Comelec Commissioner Rowena Guanzon talks to media in this file photo. MARIANNE BERMUDEZ / PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER

Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Rowena Guanzon is urging politicians not to dabble with the workings of the poll body and respect its independence.

“I would like to reiterate my appeal that the politicians should not interfere with our independence and respect our independence under the Constitution,” Guanzon said in an interview with reporters.

The commissioner’s appeal seemed to be a not too subtle dig against politicians whom she had butted heads recently: vice presidential aspirant Senator Francis Escudero and the presidential hopeful Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.

Escudero engaged in a word war with Guanzon after he called her a “threat to democracy” following the filing of a supposed unauthorized comment on the pleadings of Senator Grace Poe in the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the decisions of the Comelec First and Second Divisions to disqualify the senator from the presidential race.

Guanzon lashed backed and challenged Escudero to a showdown in the Supreme Court.

“Chiz Escudero if you are such a good lawyer why don’t you lawyer for Grace Poe. See you in the SC,” she said on her official Twitter account last Sunday.

On the other hand, Duterte on Tuesday filed a petition asking the commissioner to inhibit from participating in the disqualification cases filed against him.

Duterte, in a petition, said Guanzon had shown bias when she became the lone dissenter in the decision of the poll body to accept his certificate of candidacy and that she is closely associated with a lawyer of a petitioner seeking his disqualification—University of the Philippines Diliman University Student Council chair John Paulo delas Nieves.

Delas Nieves’ lawyer, Maria Shiela Bazar, and Guanzon are both members of the Gender Justice Network.

Meanwhile, Guanzon welcomed the decision of the full commission to ratify the comment she filed before the high tribunal on the Poe disqualification cases.

“The Commission on Elections en banc has shown to everyone, especially the electorate that we are united in upholding the integrity of this commission,” she said.

The Comelec en banc on Tuesday said that it would release a resolution to uphold Guanzon’s comment.