Senate
President Franklin M. Drilon urged the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to
refrain from sowing undue fears regarding the conduct of the 2016 elections, as
he advised the agency to exhaust all possible means to ensure that the May 2016
polls will be held simultaneously all throughout the country.
Drilon issued
the statement in response to Comelec Commissioner Christian Robert Lim's
statement that due to delayed printing of ballots because of systems
incompatibility, "the elections in some areas may not happen on May
9."
Drilon, who
is up for a re-election this year under the administration's Liberal Party,
said that the Comelec is mandated by no less than the Constitution to conduct,
without fail, clean, orderly and credible elections in the country.
Drilon
emphasized that, as a rule, elections should be held simultaneously throughout
the country and can only be postponed in exceptional cases. Under the Omnibus
Election Code, postponement may only be effected for "serious causes such
as violence, terrorism, loss or destruction of election paraphernalia or
records, force majeure, and other analogous causes of such nature that the
holding of a free, orderly and honest election should become impossible in any
political subdivision."
"Failure
to execute this very mandate is a violation of the Constitution," he said.
"The
Comelec should exhaust all possible solutions instead of talking about
postponement. There's still time to print the ballots," Drilon said.
"The
Comelec should focus on doing all it could to fulfil its mandate and refrain
from making speculations which will cause unnecessary fears and doubts among
the public regarding the upcoming elections considering the already tense and
toxic political atmosphere," Drilon added. Drilon said that the integrity
of the elections will be impaired if the election is not simultaneously held
throughout the country.
"The
Comelec should avoid actions which may bring into question the credibility and
integrity of the electoral process," Drilon said.
"Let's
say, hypothetically, that the Comelec, as it had earlier mentioned, decided to
postpone the elections in some areas. How would they pick the areas wherein the
elections would be suspended? Would they suspend as well the transmission of
the results until such time that the elections are held all throughout the
country, so that the electorate would not be swayed by early election
results?" Drilon asked.
"That is
even more problematic and chaotic than to hire more printers to hasten the
printing of ballots," Drilon said.
Meanwhile,
Drilon reiterated his call for the Comelec to implement stronger campaign
regulations "in order to put a stop to excessive and ridiculous campaign
spending in the country."
He concluded
that the Comelec should implement a strong disclosure requirement for all
candidates and study a more effective mechanism to look into their campaign
expenses. (Senate)
No comments:
Post a Comment