Namfrel to file impeachment rap vs Tancangco

The National Citizen’s Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) will file an impeachment complaint against Commission on Elections Commissioner Luzviminda Tancangco in the next Congress.

Speaking at the "Comelec Hour" program at the Westin Philippine Plaza, Namfrel chairman Jose Concepcion said corruption charges will also be filed against Tancangco before the Ombudsman.

The impeachment charges against Tancangco will be based on her alleged involvement in questionable transactions for the Comelec’s modernization and computerization program, he said.

Concepcion also disclosed that no less than immediate past Comelec chairman Harriet Demetriou will testify against Tancangco, who is the current head of the poll body’s modernization and computerization program.

In a letter to Senate President Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Demetriou asked to testify on two aspects of the Comelec’s modernization program.

"For the sake of truth and clarity, may I be permitted to testify on the status of the two modernization projects, i.e. the Voters Identification and Registration System (VIRS) and the Automated Counting and Consolidation of Results System (ACCORS)," she wrote.

Demetriou said she had already submitted documents on the controversial VIRS project which was awarded last year to a company linked to former starlet Guia Gomez, an acknowledged mistress of jailed ex-President Joseph Estrada.

After her retirement on Feb. 2, Demetriou, a former regional trial court and Sandiganbayan justice who once served as presidential legal counsel, said she was willing to testify before any administrative or judicial forum on the VIRS project.

The controversial project had something to do with the acquisition of election equipment, amounting to some P6.5 billion, which was awarded to Photokina Marketing Corp.

Even before her retirement, Demetriou said she had already expressed her "strong and vigorous disapproval of it for being illegally and grossly disadvantageous to the government."

She had also claimed that businessman and leading Manila congressional bet Mark Jimenez would be able to provide information on the alleged anomaly.

Although she and former Comelec commissioners Teresita Flores and Julio Desamito objected to the contract, Demetriou said Tancangco and other Estrada appointees to the poll body were able to thwart her objections by allegedly boycotting Comelec en banc meetings.

During the last two weeks of her term as chairman, she claimed the four repeatedly failed to attend en banc meetings to resolve pending cases, including the purchase of VIRS machines.

Aside from Tancangco, the other Estrada appointees to the Comelec are Commissioners Rufino Javier, Mehol Sadain and Ralph Lantion.

Comelec chairman Alfredo Benipayo and Commissioners Resurreccion Borra and Florentino Tuason were appointed by President Arroyo in February.