MANILA, 12 April 2006 — Opposition leaders yesterday urged President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to first get rid of three Commission on Elections (Comelec) officials who presided over the 2004 election to ensure the success of reforms in the poll body as proposed by former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr.
Davide has pushed for a revamp of the poll body and submitted to Malacañang the names of six people “of integrity” as possible commissioners of a poll body tainted with fraud charges and connivance with politicians.
The palace yesterday said President Arroyo would seriously consider the Davide recommendations.
Speaking to the Inquirer in Cebu City, Davide, the president’s adviser on electoral reforms, stressed the urgency of reforming the Comelec but said he had yet to receive word from Arroyo about his recommendations.Davide declined to identify his six nominees but they came from his initial list of 11 names. He said he believed his six nominees “can really restore the credibility of the commission” whose integrity has been tarnished because of allegations of corruption and poll cheating.
House Minority Floor Leader Francis Escudero yesterday said Davide’s recommendation to appoint six commissioners would not remove cheating allegations surrounding the Comelec unless the president removed the three incumbents.
He was referring to Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos, and Commissioners Resurrecion Borra and Florentino Tuason Jr.
North Cotabato Rep. Emmylou Talino-Santos, lead chairman of the joint committees in the House Representatives that investigated the alleged conspiracy between the president and former poll commissioner Virgilio Garcillano to cheat in the 2004 polls, said that doubts on the integrity of the Comelec would continue to linger even if the president appointed new faces in the poll body.
“You can’t take out the apprehensions of some people because the appointing authority remains with the president, who is the subject of a cheating controversy,” Talino-Santos said over a telephone interview.
“Of course, we welcome the suggestion of the former chief justice. We just hope that those who will be appointed will also look into the interest of the people,” she said.
She said that in their committee report submitted for plenary approval, there was a recommendation to direct the appropriate committees of the House and Senate to provide specific details and mechanisms to enforce such reforms.
“I hope we could come up with a mechanism where the right to vote should be respected and the right to appoint must not be abused,” she pointed out.
Cavite Representative Gilbert Remulla also welcomed Davide’s proposal but said that a revamp of the Comelec should be done “up to the very bottom, which is part of a cheating.”
“The president should listen to Davide. But the new appointments should also undergo scrutiny by the public,” Remulla said.
Abalos has welcomed the recommendations for poll reforms, saying “they are the fruits of Davide’s consultation with us.”
But he dodged comment on Davide’s disclosure that he had recommended six nominees to Arroyo.
(A Political Matter(
“I cannot comment on that because I haven’t heard about it,” Abalos told the Inquirer by phone. “But if that’s true, appointing commissioners is a prerogative of the president and it is a political matter.”
The constitution provides for a Comelec chair and six commissioners. Only four of the six commissioner seats are filled at present.
Appointees are made by the president with the consent of the Commission on Appointments.
The constitution fixes the commissioner’s term at seven years without reappointment. Members can only be removed from office through impeachment or resignation.
When asked if a revamp was possible considering that commissioners could only be removed through impeachment, Davide said changes in the constitution were also part of the long report he submitted to Arroyo on March 10.
“I am hopeful, I am praying, that they would be in place because of the very nature of the proposals which are urgent,” Davide said.
He declined to specify the provisions in the charter he wanted changed, saying he would rather leave it to Arroyo to release to the public the contents of his report.
Davide said he marked his report as urgent so his proposals would be implemented before the 2007 elections.
