Comelec: Few weeks’ poll delay possible

THE COMMISSION on Elections (Comelec) is eyeing “a few weeks” of postponement of the May 9 polls if the Supreme Court upholds its decision requiring the poll agency to print voter receipts on election day.

In an interview, Comelec Chair Andres Bautista also clarified that a “no elections” scenario was never considered by the Comelec, but that a postponement remained among their options.

“There’s no-el. Po-el, postponement, that’s what’s being studied,” Bautista said after a meeting with the Comelec Advisory Council (CAC) on Monday.

In the event of a “Po-El,” the poll chief said they might only need a few weeks to ensure that winning candidates would be able to assume their posts by June 30 as mandated by law.

“Maybe we will need a few weeks. We are well aware that the terms of our current officials will end on June 30. This is why it is important that we can proclaim the winners before June 30 so we can have an orderly transition,” said Bautista.

Senate committee on electoral reforms chair Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III earlier accused the Comelec of engaging in fear-mongering when the latter raised the possibility of postponing the elections or going back to manual counting.

The two scenarios, the Comelec had said, were being considered given the proximity of the May 9 elections and the need to re-do their preparations which would take about three months.

Bautista, however, admitted that either manual elections or delaying the polls would need specific laws before they could be executed.

“But there are also times when legal issues should be set aside if we want to have an orderly and credible election,” he said.

Discuss SC decision

“If we cannot fulfill that mandate of ours, in my opinion, we must be open to the idea of whether to still push through with the elections on the set date,” he added.

On Monday, the poll body met with the Comelec Advisory Council and representatives of the political parties to discuss the impact of the SC decision on their preparations and on the conduct of the elections. The council is set to make its recommendations in a written memo.

Among the issues discussed was the necessity to conduct the trusted build process for the vote counting machines to enable the printing of voter receipts.

But some political parties oppose the postponement of the polls.

Ivan John Uy, representative of the United Nationalist Alliance, said political parties had agreed that May 9 should be immovable.

“The [postponement of the polls] is out of the question so all of us agreed to work together to make sure that we do hold the elections on May 9, and it’s going to be automated,” Uy told reporters.

Definitely no postponement

Comelec Commissioner Christian Robert Lim said the stand of the political parties would be part of the en banc’s discussion today (Tuesday).

“Definitely no postponement. Section 5 of Omnibus Election Code states the grounds for postponement of elections. Only Congress can postpone the elections. If you postpone the election, it will cause a very big political upheaval, the people will not allow that,” said former Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, who is now legal counsel for the Nationalist People’s Coalition.

Larrazabal said they also did not agree to manual polls.

“It’s illegal. We should not even talk about manual elections because that’s not allowed,” he said, adding that the worst case scenario on election day would be for the voting to last until the next day.

Former Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes believes it would be better to implement the receipts requirement in the 2019 polls.