‘Explosive’ Comelec meeting goes pfft

Tuesday’s Commission on Elections (Comelec) en banc meeting was “professional” and “civil,” probably since issues recently raised against its chair were not discussed.

In a brief interview with reporters after the three-hour meeting, Chair Andres Bautista—speaking in a hoarse voice—said the session with the other commissioners on Tuesday “was cordial.” He then quickly entered his office.

But for Commissioner Rowena Guanzon, the meeting did not settle the issues the six commissioners had raised against Bautista in a strongly-worded memorandum on June 3.

“There was no  closure because it was not talked about. He has no voice so I suppose we have to wait,” she told reporters.

Commissioner Al Parreno presided over the session since Bautista could barely speak. Topics taken up included the budget for the coming barangay elections and voting machines supplier Smartmatic’s request for payment.

Act of protest

Six of the seven commissioners attended the session, with only Commissioner Christian Robert Lim absenting himself as an act of protest.

The conflict in the Comelec broke out in the open after the six commissioners under chair Bautista criticized him in a memorandum for “failed leadership.”

They raised in the memo issues such as the delay in payment of election workers and a mall company’s “demand for damages” after the Comelec cancelled mall voting at the last minute before the May 9 elections.

Focus on division cases

Guanzon, Lim and fellow Commissioner Luie Guia had also said they were not participating in the barangay elections in October “in order to focus on the cases pending in their division.”

Bautista came under even more fire after he flew to Japan over the weekend without the approval of the Comelec en banc (all members).

Lim, the most senior commissioner, in a memorandum dated June 27, said the Comelec chair should not have issued a travel authority to himself and he should have sought the permission of the Comelec en banc.

Collegial body

“Based on existing guidelines, there is no instance where a chair applies and approves his own travel authority. This is simply a concept of checks and balances. The commission en banc remains a collegial body unlike the Office of the Ombudsman. Until the existing guideline is revoked by the Comelec en banc, and another is put in place, we all have to follow the guidelines we ourselves have enacted,” Lim’s memo read.

Guanzon said she had a standing request for an executive session between Bautista and the six commissioners to thresh out their differences.

“It’s up to him to set the meeting and set the tone, however he wants to do it. But we cannot just bury it and forget it—it’s better to talk about it,” she said.

She added: “All of these are matters of public interest, the delays in promulgation, the investigation in the hacking of the [Comelec] website. It’s a matter of public interest. He [Bautista] is liable, responsible, that’s our question.”   With a report from Toni Diane Bellen