FORMER Senate President Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr. warned on Tuesday that he suspects “partisan power play” is behind the administration’s unwavering bid to postpone the August 8 election in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
“The administration wants to postpone the ARMM election probably to give its candidates a decisive edge in the 2013 ARMM and senatorial elections and in the 2016 presidential, vice- presidential and senatorial elections,” said Pimentel.
“Behind the excuses by the administration to deny Muslim people their right to vote, I see a partisan desire to cling on to power by the President’s partymates even after President Aquino’s term is over in 2016,” stressed Pimentel, the author of the ARMM Organic Act.
He said that if a law is passed based on the two bills now pending in the Senate, Malacañang will get a free hand to appoint officers in charge (OICs) to govern the ARMM in the interim, especially if the bills do not provide for their approval through a plebiscite by the people of the ARMM. The ARMM charter, Pimentel said, was adopted by the people of the ARMM in a plebiscite. It cannot now be legally amended without a plebiscite.
The more practical danger is that the OICs will get to control the region’s annual budget of about P11 billion, “which, from 2011 to 2013, will translate to an election war chest of P33 billion for the administration political machinery in the ARMM alone,” he pointed out.
“Knowing how partisan politics is played in this country, there is no doubt that the OICs will be tasked to ensure victory not only for the administration candidates in the 2013 ARMM election but also to get the votes for the administration’s senatorial bets in 2013.” There are reportedly over a million voters in the ARRM.
“Once they win in the 2013 ARMM election, they would then have a much bigger role in delivering the votes to whoever the administration wants to anoint as its presidential, vice-presidential and senatorial candidates in 2016,” Pimentel said.
If the administration wants to convert the issue of postponing the ARMM election into a partisan ploy, then it would not be unseemly for non-Liberal Party senators to vote against any ARMM poll-postponement bill. The net effect of such effort would probably “stop Malacañang-appointed OICs from waging a proxy war in the ARMM for their administration masters who are eyeing the elections beyond 2013.”
In past elections, votes cast in the ARMM, whose population was pegged at 4.1 million in a 2007 census, had decided victory or defeat for many a political party, Pimentel stressed.
“The administration covers up its ultimate political goal by announcing that it wants to save P1.8 billion by resetting the 2011 ARMM election to 2013. The truth is that if it shall have its way, the operators of the administration would have access to the P33 billion of the ARMM budget in the next three years, which they can use for ulterior political motives,” Pimentel warned.
“Except for the President himself, his party colleagues got a severe whipping in the 2010 elections. I suggest that if the President is to make a difference for the national weal, he should not follow the beaten path taken by the past administration that was characterized by its lust for power,” said Pimentel.
