JUNARD “Ahong” Chan of PDP-Laban is qualified to run and his name is on the ballot as candidate for Lapu-Lapu City mayor. The Comelec en banc last April 23 issued the ruling in a minute resolution (#19-0388). But Chan formally received a copy of the order only yesterday (Wednesday, May 8), five days before the elections.
Since late November last year, a heavy cloud of doubt had darkened Chan’s campaign. Expectedly, his two rivals, Arturo Radaza and Rolando Patalinjug, exploited the issue.
The snafu shouldn’t have happened. Chan met the requirements. Bureaucratic error was the apparent cause. Omission or negligence may disguise ill motive but Chan and his supporters can only suspect.
Two COCs
Comelec Manila said Chan filed two COCs, the old form and the new one. The new form contains Item #22, the question whether one, in a final and executory judgment, was found liable for an offense that carries accessory penalty of perpetual disqualification to hold public office.
The papers were separately notarized, with two O.R.’s from the city treasurer. That has not been adequately explained, even by Chan himself. Still, that would’ve been all right: only one COC was transmitted to Comelec Manila. But the clerks there slipped, or deliberately missed, as they didn’t notice the answer to question #22 at the back of the form. And on the basis of the error, which surely was a lot more than clerical, the law department recommended Chan’s disqualification.
Who goofed
Thus, Chang and 52 others were ordered disqualified by Comelec en banc (under Resolution #18-1182 dated Nov. 28, 2018). Some filed motions for reconsideration. Others pressed the law department to untangle the COC foul-up. A few went to court.
Where to pin the blame?
* On the local level, the election officer reportedly sent only one form to Manila, although it is still puzzling why Chan filled up two forms in the first place. The EO did explain in writing the circumstances, which showed Chan met the item #22 requirement, in two forms.
* As to Comelec’s law department, the negligence glares in all annoying brightness. The clerks didn’t notice the back of the form and its officials made the recommendation on the basis of the negligent inspection of the document. The public must wonder if it did not have a check and counter-check system, given the high stakes. On top of the foul-up, there is the abominable affliction of delay and its cost on the campaign.
Campaign snagged
True, the affected candidates could use the remedies of the law and indeed many obtained relief. Chan was helped by the law department when it corrected the error; a candidate for mayor in Baguio City got the Supreme Court’s help. But the snafu delayed and hurt their campaigns.
How much of the delay was unavoidable? Comelec’s law department received last Dec. 18 yet the affidavits of then Lapu-Lapu City Election Officer Janette Chua Hu-Lamban sorting out the “confusion.” But it took the department, through Director Norina Tangaro-Casingal, until April 2 to send a memo correcting the mistake to the Comelec en banc. The full body, in a resolution the following day, April 3, restored Chan, along with a candidate for councilor in San Simon, Pampanga.
Hurray for the en banc action. But it took the same law department more than a month, from April 3 to May 8, to transmit the resolution to Chan, although he had personally visited Manila Comelec many times for it.
Bureaucracy goofed? Maybe. But Comelec still is reputed to run a machinery whose cogs require a particular kind of grease to speed up or slow down. And cases like Chan’s are not helping the effort to shed off that image.