CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – There is yet no assurance that the recall petition against Gov. Eddie Panlilio would immediately be acted by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) en banc despite President Arroyo’s appointment of three new commissioners that now gives quorum to the polls body.
In an interview with Punto, Comelec legal department chief Ferdinand Rafanan said reappointed Commissioners Leonaro Leonida and Lucenito Tagle and newly appointed Armando Velasco took their oaths only last Saturday.
Before this, the Comelec could not act on the recall petition as it had no quorum with only its Chairman Jose Melo and Commissioners Rene Sarmiento and Nicodemo Ferrer in its bench. The poll body’s Rules of Procedure requires at least four commissioners to constitute a quorum.
The one-month lull triggered by lack of quorum has caused considerable backlogs for the Comelec en banc to consider, Rafanan said.
He said that the Comelec en banc held its first session with the three freshly appointed commissioners only yesterday since Congress went into recess a month ago. Leonida and Tagle were reappointed after Congress bypassed them earlier.
The recall petition which contained the signatures of some 220,000 Pampanga voters, was submitted to the office of the Comelec en banc last Oct. 24 after provincial election supervisor Temmie Lambino and the Comelec deputy executive for operations Bartolome Sinocruz declared it as valid in “form and substance”.
While Lambino said that the Comelec en banc normally decides on such petitions within 15 days from submission, it had no quorum when the petition against Panlilio was submitted to it last Oct. 24.
But Rafanan clarified that the 15-day period cited by Lambino was “not binding” regardless of whether or not a quorum exists.
“It’s what we call a directory period that is not mandatory, especially when the task is physically impossible to accomplish,” he said, noting that no less than 50 cases of electoral disputes have already piled up over the past month since the lack of quorum in the Comelec.
Leonida, Tagle and Velasco’s appointment remain on “interim” status and are again up for the final approval of the Commission on Appointments, Rafanan said.
But Rafanan explained that since they were appointed before Congress officially resumed session last Nov. 10, they could already perform their full functions as commissioners, thus giving the Comelec en banc the quorum it needs to decide on pending electoral cases.
“Had they been appointed by the President while Congress is in session, they would have to wait for their appointments to be approved by the Commission on Appointments before they could function,” he explained.
“I can not comment on when the petition against Panlilio will be taken. The cases the Comelec en banc has to tackle have accumulated over the past month,” he said.
Rafanan noted that his office alone has forwarded some 50 electoral cases for consideration of the Comelec en banc.
The Kapanalig at Kambilan ning Memalen Pampanga (Kambilan) which initiated the recall move against Panlilio had expressed confidence that the Comelec en banc would confirm its petition and state special gubernatorial elections in this province by this December or January next year.
In a text message, Kambilan president Rosve Henson said that an appeal for the Comelec en banc to rush with the petition against Panlilio was “not necessary anymore”, as he expressed confidence that the polls body would “calendar” it for immediate consideration.
Earlier, Rafanan also said that even if the Comelec en banc finds merit in the recall case, it is not likely to generate enough funds to carry out special gubernatorial elections in Pampanga. At least P24 million would be needed for this, the Comelec provincial office estimated.
The Department of Budget and Management earlier said the Pampanga provincial board, which announced it would allocate such funds, is not authorized by law to do so.
This, as Rafanan said the Comelec does not have funds and is not likely to seek funds from other sources to carry out any special elections here.
