Comelec in disarray

WHAT IN heaven’s name is happening at the Commission on Elections? It’s just three months away from the critical national elections in May that will install this country’s next president and a vast new slate of public officials up and down the archipelago. But look, the poll body tasked by the Constitution to oversee peaceful, honest and orderly elections is a house in virtual chaos, its members publicly behaving as though they were in a henhouse. Elections commissioners are supposed to be avatars of probity, professionalism, fairness and sensible thought—lawyers first of all and sworn public servants second.

But there they are, sniping at each other in full view of the electorate that, at this time, is looking to the poll body to make, at the very least, the rational judgments that would help them make the right choice for their next leaders once they’re inside the voting booth.

The Comelec has only seven members. How hard is it for these seven distinguished men and women to sit down and discuss their differences among themselves, especially on matters of grave import—like solving the question of a presidential aspirant’s qualification to be an official candidate, especially if that candidate happens to be trending favorably in preelection surveys—before airing their dispute in public, and in so unseemly a manner at that?

How hard was it for Comelec Chair Andres Bautista to pick up the phone and talk privately first with his colleague Rowena Guanzon, to thresh out whatever contrary opinion he has over the latter’s filing of a brief in the Supreme Court opposing the motion of Sen. Grace Poe to junk the Comelec First and Second Divisions’ decisions disqualifying her from the race? Bautista said Guanzon’s action, which he claimed was made without clearance from him or the full commission, was “not only irregular but [also] personally disrespectful.” Granted that firing off memos to demand an explanation from a supposedly erring official for such unauthorized behavior puts such things officially on the record and is thus an aid in transparency; but did Bautista have to make it all public before talking to the Comelec’s legal department, which prepared the brief, or Guanzon herself, whom he could have given a dressing-down within their offices and away from the cameras, thus sparing the Comelec the appearance of an agency chronically unable to get its house in order?

But if Bautista was imprudent in this case, Guanzon is worse. The merits of her brief with the Supreme Court are best left to the magistrates to weigh and decide on; it’s the manner by which she has comported herself in the wake of Bautista’s disclaimer of her filing that leaves a terrible taste in the mouth.

In a counter-memorandum she posted online, Guanzon said Bautista’s memo “has cast a stain on my reputation as a Commissioner and as a lawyer.” Fair enough. She could have chosen to be professional and serious-minded about it by reining herself, checking her tone and using temperate language, as befits her stature as, indeed, one of only seven people in the country constitutionally charged to oversee the all-important exercise of democratic elections, and as a member of the bar as well. But listen to how she has responded to Bautista, on radio yet: “He has no power over me. He has no authority to discipline me. How dare he issue me a memorandum to reply to him in 24 hours. What does he think of me? His employee?”

It gets even more unsettling in the vernacular, when she casts insinuations on Bautista as being partisan and gloats that her position against Poe was more favored among her colleagues: “Isang boto lang siya e. Lima kami, nanalo kami e. Talo siya e. Panig siya kay Grace Poe e.” (He was only one vote against our five. He lost—and he was for Grace Poe.)

The words would make anyone blanch. Remember that this is an elections commissioner—someone who cannot appear ever too eager to favor, or diss, one candidate over another. After all, in the event the Supreme Court rules in Poe’s favor, where would that leave Guanzon and her outrageous remarks? In so many words, and from her own mouth no less, the woman has basically undermined her reputation by validating the subtext of Bautista’s critique of her actions as those of someone prone to rash, careless and indelicate behavior.

Chair Bautista needs to pull rank, and firmly, if only to get the Comelec functioning smoothly again.