Mixed reactions met PNP Director General Jesus Verzosa’s tough talk against prolonging Gloria Arroyo in power. Many can’t believe he’s neutral politically. To recall, with Interior Sec. Ronaldo Puno he replaced the police chiefs of opposition governors and mayors, despite an election ban. Puno had engineered the poll victory of three Presidents, two of them doubted. Another credibility gap is Verzosa’s failure to this day to explain his wife’s link to the “euro generals” scandal. Puno had covered up that mess of PNP generals and wives being caught by Moscow Customs with huge amounts of undeclared euros.
Others think Verzosa bravely spoke for PMA Classes 1976 and 1977. The two senior batches resent being put under the command of new AFP chief of staff Gen. Delfin Bangit, PMA ’78. But now they have Verzosa to foil any hanky-panky. If so, Verzosa’s days could be numbered. He uttered fighting words on Mar. 10, the start of a constitutional ban on presidential appointments. But the election ban on promoting (a substitute for Verzosa?) has yet to take effect on Mar. 26.
Till next episode....
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The Supreme Court is not a trier of facts. In cases brought up to it about misreading of facts, it only determines grave abuse of discretion. Meaning, it rules if a lower body had acted excessively or evasively, despotically or arbitrarily. That can be fiddly, as Camarines Norte Gov. Jesus Typoco learned the painful way. The SC ruled last week that he had lost the 2007 race. It took only 65 votes for rival Edgardo Tallado to become winner. Following habit of poll cases being decided last minute during the next balloting Typoco faces forcible ouster from the provincial capitol.
The issue began 2008 when Tallado belatedly filed with the Comelec for “correction of manifest error” in the tally. He claimed fudged figures in copying from the Statement of Votes per Precinct to the canvass certificate in Labo town. With the adjustment he came out 65 votes ahead. Typoco’s counsel asked to see the same SOVP at the Comelec records and statistics department. To his surprise, the department clerk said the form looked fake and different from the usual. The records head and other staffers attested to this. Still the en banc in 2009 upheld the earlier division ruling of Tallado’s win. The counsel rechecked the records. The logbook showed that not one of the commissioners had bothered to peruse the SOVP for authenticity. Only when he pointed out this lapse did the en banc order the NBI to investigate.
Meanwhile, Typoco ran to the SC to temporarily restrain the Comelec from unseating him; granted. While the case was pending the NBI reported that the SOVP indeed was bogus. Last week the SC ruled, 11-2, that Tallado truly had won. Seeing no grave abuse of discretion, it said that only the Comelec, not the NBI, had the expertise to validate the SOVP from secret markings. Too, that only the Comelec, not the SC, had the capacity to try the facts. The NBI findings were trashed; upheld instead was the Comelec ruling based on the unverified SOVP.
The SC gave a second reason to junk the NBI report: it was made during the period of the temporary restraining order; hence invalid. Huh?
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What Rep. Baham Mitra called “patent abuse of discretion” at the Comelec is becoming “pattern”. The poll body had disqualified him from Palawan’s gubernatorial race for non-residency. Now it’s preparing to do the same to his political allies. Facing debarment too are Gov. Joel Reyes who’s running for congressman, and wife Clara “Fems” Reyes for vice governor.
The issue has to do with domicile. And it sparked when capital city Puerto Princesa recently was classed as highly urbanized and so will no longer vote for provincial officials. The Comelec said that Mitra still lives in the old family manor in Puerto built by his dad, the late Speaker Ramon Jr. It upheld detractors’ claims that a house Mitra was erecting in Aborlan town was unfinished. Too, that the Aborlan address in his candidacy certificate is a shanty unfit for a congressman. Totally ignored were legal definitions of domicile, that the Mitras are Palaweños, and that Mitra has served three congressional terms. Left unopposed was rich logger Pepito Alvarez, who registered as Palawan voter only in Dec. 2008.
Reyes hails from Coron town in the 1st district, where he and Fems have an ancestral home. They often stay in Puerto, to be conveniently near the provincial capitol where the governor works. For the May election they registered their other home in Aborlan where they stay when inspecting the 2nd district. Those familiar with Palawan know its exceedingly elongated, thickly forested geography. Rivals now say the Reyeses’ Aborlan home is but a small guesthouse unfit for Palawan’s First Couple.
The Reyeses’ lawyer Ferdie Topacio cries foul. He is asking Comelec chief Jose Melo to investigate persistent murmurs that big money is flowing to debar his clients for non-residency. Poll automation would make it hard to buy votes in precincts or canvasses in municipalities, Topacio says. So poll cheats are fast-breaking to victory via exclusion of rivals. Question: will Melo heed the request to sit in the Comelec second division deliberations?
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“To reach the pinnacle of success one must climb through a ladder of failures.” Shafts of Light, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ
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E-mail: jariusbondoc@workmail.com