{waiting watching wishing}

Thursday, October 05, 2006

{on the abolition of the COMELEC}

although i strongly disagreed with former SC Justice Isagani Cruz's column practically bashing gays, i strongly agree with his opinion in this particular case. i believe the COMELEC as it is is sorely damaged and beyond repair. and while i am opposed to charter change at this point in time for many reasons i will not delve into now, i do think it's high time that people take a look at the marred constitutional commission that is the COMELEC. radical as it may seem, my personal opinion is that the COMELEC as it is should be abolished and replaced with an entirely new institution.

Abolish the Comelec
First posted 00:25am (Mla time) April 08, 2006
By Isagani Cruz
Inquirer

THE proposal to change the present Constitution, by whatever method this is done, should include the abolition of the Commission on Elections as the most vicious obstacle to the safeguarding of the ballot as the highest symbol of the democratic society.

This function was originally entrusted to the secretary of the interior, but this arrangement was deemed unsatisfactory because of his partisan identification. A statutory body was thus created to take over this responsibility, but it was also found to be unreliable because of the pressures that could be exerted on it by the political departments that had created and could abolish it.

It was, therefore, converted in 1940 into an independent constitutional commission that was thereafter retained pro forma in the 1973 Constitution and seriously reestablished and improved in the Constitution of 1987.

Its record on the whole has been disgraceful rather than commendable. It has miserably failed to achieve the constitutional ideal of "free, orderly, honest, peaceful, and credible elections" for which the present Constitution had strengthened its powers. Its lack of independence and integrity was first revealed in the case of Mabanag v. Lopez Vito, 78 Phil. 1, where the Commission on Elections (Comelec) refused to examine the claimed insufficiency of the votes required for Congress to propose the Parity Amendment.

In fairness, it was sustained by the Supreme Court on the ground that the issue raised was a political question that neither the Comelec nor the Court itself should decide. Fortunately, this evasive doctrine was later reversed in the case of Tañada v. Cuenco, 100 Phil. 1101, which held that questions involving the legality, not the wisdom, of a particular act were justiciable.

In 1949, Jose P. Laurel appeared initially to have won the presidential election, only to be defeated by a torrent of votes from Lanao province, where it was generally believed "the birds and the bees" had voted for Elpidio Quirino. The Comelec took no steps to investigate the apparent massive irregularity and in effect sustained it.

The elections of Manuel Quezon in 1941, Manuel Roxas in 1945, Ramon Magsaysay in 1953, Carlos Garcia in 1957 and Diosdado Macapagal in 1961 were relatively clean. But the victories of Ferdinand Marcos in 1965 and 1969 were marred by tremendous vote-buying that the Comelec took no action to prevent and correct.

The declaration of martial law in 1972 further eroded the authority of the Comelec to protect the purity of suffrage that was ravaged with the "ratification" of the 1973 Constitution, the several plebiscites and referendum held to sanitize the Marcos abuses, and the snap election of 1985, which was the straw that broke the camel's back.

It was during the dictatorship that the Comelec sank to its lowest depths. Of special depravity was its decision against Evelio Javier, who appealed it to the Marcos Supreme Court, which deliberately sat on it to protect the respondents. The new Supreme Court unearthed and reversed it in the case of Evelio Javier v. Commission on Elections and Arturo Pacificador, 144 SCRA 194, which posthumously sustained the assassinated petitioner.

How has the Comelec comported itself since then?

Its past abuses and ineptness have caught up with it at last and its reputation, which used to be satisfactory if not exactly commendable, is now in tatters. It is now disdained as among the government agencies least deserving of the people's respect for its inexcusable notoriety.

Its reprehensible conduct in the automated election scandal that was denounced by the Supreme Court itself, its failure to even restrict the proliferation and uglification of prohibited posters in Metro Manila and other urban centers, the "dagdag-bawas" [vote-padding and vote-shaving] anomalies that have tainted the election of some members of the Senate, the suspicious activities of Luz Tancangco and other Comelec officials, its needless acquisition of million-peso vehicles for the ostentation of its members, the believable charges of the fraudulent election of President Gloria with the connivance of Virgilio Garcillano, and many other faults of character and competence demand no other action than its abolition as the supposed but failed protector of the ravished ballot.

The other alternative is for the current chair and members of the Comelec, including all their tainted personnel, to immediately resign and give up all their arrant privileges so they can be replaced by worthy civic servants who will not reject but instead respect suffrage as the oriflamme of the real democracy.

But that is hardly probable if they go by the attitude of their idolized exemplar, who insists on remaining where she is no longer fit or wanted. That's the sum and substance of Philippine democracy.

Posted by arianne at 6:38 PM