A SENIOR legislator on Saturday urged President Aquino to immediately appoint a new Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman and fill up the poll body’s two vacant slots for associate commissioners to hasten preparations for the 2016 national elections.
Nationalist People’s Coalition Rep. Rodito Albano III of Isabela, a member of the Minority Bloc in the House of Representatives, said it’s about time that the President appoints a full-time chairman and replacements to seats vacated by two commissioners in the poll body to accelerate all the necessary plans to ensure the smooth and orderly conduct of elections in May next year.
Three seats in the Comelec have been vacant since early February, when chairman Sixto Brillantes and two commissioners—Lucenito Tagle and Elias Yusoph—retired.
“It is imperative that we have a fully manned Comelec now in the light of so many critical problems hounding the preparations for the 2016 national elections, particularly the stalled automated election program caused by a TRO [temporary restraining order] issued by the Supreme Court [SC] on the Smartmatic contract,”
Albano said.
Albano pointed out that the Comelec could not properly prepare and implement plans and programs for the elections under an interim or caretaker leadership and an undermanned commission.
“With the automated election program mired in legal controversies now, a fully manned and functioning poll body is better equipped and empowered to look into alternative plans to ensure the smooth and orderly conduct of national elections in 2016,” Albano said.
He stressed the need for a fully manned and functioning poll body that must hit the ground running to make up for delays in the preparations for the 2016 elections and, more important, to provide for alternative programs in the event that the controversial Smartmatic contract is voided by the Supreme Court.
“Time is of the essence, and prudence dictates that the Comelec consider alternative plans, like the proposed semi-automated, or hybrid elections system, like the Transparent and Credible Election System or TCREST, in which voting and canvassing of votes are conducted manually but the election results are transmitted electronically by computers through the Internet and other telecommunications systems,” Albano said.
He said some countries abroad have reverted back to manual system of voting and canvassing of votes at the precinct level for reasons of openness and transparency in the conduct of their polls.
In particular, Albano cited the election system in Germany, which has fully automated system before but has since reverted back to the manual system.
“Given this major development in other countries, it makes a lot of sense now for the government, through the Comelec, to seriously consider a contingency plan, like the TCREST, if the controversy-marred Smartmatic-based automated election system has to be dropped because of legal reasons,” Albano said.