Sunday, 18 April 2010 08:27
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/17 April)-- Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. has urged the Commission on Elections to hold the national and local elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) ahead of the May 10 polls, to prevent fraud and violence.
Pimentel said the Comelec, mandated by law and the Constitution to conduct free, honest, clean and orderly elections, “has the power to move the date of elections when it is not possible to achieve such objective.”
The Lanto bothers, Macabangkit and Benjamin, petitioned Comelec to hold the elections in the ARMM earlier than May 10.
Pimentel was invited by the Comelec’s first division, composed of Commissioners Rene Sarmiento (chair), Nicodemo Ferrer and Gregorio Larrazabal (members), to be an amicus curiae (friend of the court) to help in assessing the merits and legal basis for the proposal, given that Congress sets the date of the elections.
Sarmiento said hearing is set on Monday for early voting in the ARMM and for media.
In a press statement, Pimentel said he prefers the elections held a week or ten days earlier. He said the move is “extremely necessary” because “elections in some provinces in the ARMM have always, repeat always, been marred by violence that frustrates the will of the people from emerging through the ballot.”
“Recent events show that there would be no credible, honest and peaceful elections in the ARMM, hence, the need for an extraordinary undertaking by the Commission to ensure that the people in the said area will not be prevented from expressing their will of threats or actual violence,” Pimentel said in a press statement.
Pimentel cited recent incidents of violence in the ARMM – the Ampatuan Massacre of November 23, 2009 where at least 58 persons were killed, 32 of them from the media; and the recent bomb blasts in Sulu and Basilan.
Pimentel said Sarmiento had personally witnessed or had received verified reports of the outbreak of violence in many parts of the ARMM when he was the commissioner-in-charge of ARMM regional elections in 2007.
By advancing the ARMM elections, Pimentel said the Comelec and its deputized agencies, including the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police, will be able to mobilize their personnel and resources to supervise the polls and foil any attempt by any group to manipulate the polls.
On December 22, the Comelec passed a resolution formally endorsing the holding of early elections in the ARMM, giving lawmakers the go-signal to pass bills seeking early polls in the region.
Sarmiento explained that the pending bills in Congress for early ARMM polls could not be processed unless endorsed by the poll body.
The Comelec proposed that elections in the ARMM be held not later than April 12 or a month earlier than the May 10 elections. The bills propose that elections be held in the ARMM at least a week ahead of the rest of the nation - Senate Bill 2972, authored by Sen. Richard Gordon, House Bill 5578 authored by Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, and House Bill 3437 authored by Camiguin Rep. Pedro Romualdo.
On March 23, 2009, Comelec chair Jose Melo said he was “personally… in favor of it so that the concentration of our security forces and the election administration would be focused in the ARMM. ... If that would be the case, there might be fewer shenanigans there.”
But then ARMM Solicitor General Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi said the proposal “violates that law which synchronizes the local and national elections. Most importantly it is constitutionally infirmed. Under the Constitution, local and national elections shall be held on the 2nd Monday of May. The ARMM local government units (LGUs) are no different from any other LGUs.”
Calls for early elections in the ARMM were revived after the November 23, 2009 massacre of at least 58 persons, 32 of them from the media, allegedly by the Ampatuans.
Maguindanao was placed under a state of emergency and later under martial.law. It remains under a state of emergency to this day.
Congress, however, has gone on recess without passing the early voting bills.
Sarmiento told MindaNews Saturday that “if petitions are granted by us, we will set the date.”
But Guiamel Alim, a member of the Council of Elders o the Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society (CBCS) said, “too late the hero.”
“How can you have ARMM elections in two weeks? May 10 is only three weeks away,” Alim added.
Sarmiento said, “we will also study the operational and practical angles aside from legal and constitutional angles.”
Sarmiento said Alim is right in that “Time is running fast. If Congress had acted fast and passed a law, we could have saved a lot of concerns.”
Fr. Eliseo Mercado, Jr., of the Institute of Autonomy and Governance and
>Bobby Benito of the Bangsamoro Center for Just Peace, say they agree with Pimentel’s proposal.
On the early voting for media, Makati Rep. Tedoro Locsin Jr. in December said there was still time for the passage of a measure that would allow media members to vote ahead of the May 10 elections media if the Senate will adopt the version of the House of Representatives.
Locsin, one of the principal authors of House Bill 6928 (An Act Providing for Early Voting to Qualified Members of Media), said the bill, approved on third reading, considers the fact that many journalists may not be able to vote on May 10 as they will cover the polls.
The Senate, however, proposed an early balloting not only for the media but also for certain sectors of society, prompting Locin to say “the leadership of the House feels this can be turned into a universal cheating system.”
The Commission on Elections had issued Resolution 8749 supporting the bill and urging both chambers of Congress to pass it, to allow media to cast their votes for one day “within April 24 to 26.”
Congress has gone on recess without passing the measure. (MindaNews)
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