What Brillantes will do if bypassed anew

Did the Supreme Court paint itself into a corner in stopping the appointment of officers-in-charge of the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao?

The SC’s temporary restraining order could be unconstitutional. Article X, on Local Governments, limits the tenure of elected officials to three years. The terms of the present ARMM assemblymen shall expire on September 30. The SC must lift its order by then. It cannot extend by judicial legislation the assemblymen’s stay. Not even Congress can do so, except with barangay officials as specified in the Constitution. Only the citizenry can remake the basic law, by majority vote in plebiscite.

An SC insistence on its restraining order could open the justices, including the Chief, to impeachment. A good majority of the House of Reps and the Senate separately had moved to postpone the ARMM election, from last August 8 to May 12, 2013. In Republic Act 10153 the legislators empowered the President to place OICs, starting with the governor. Those same congressmen could impeach, for culpable violation of the Constitution, the eight justices who barred Malacañang from enforcing a congressional enactment. The senators could convict them by removal from office. Some members of the two chambers have been itching to do just that.

It would be interesting if, to highlight the SC dilemma, the Palace does not appeal the restraining order. Then, the SC might have to quietly beg any party to file for lifting of the TRO, so it could have something to act on. Or it awkwardly could let the TRO lapse on its own on September 30, precisely due to the constitutionality issue. The President can then proceed to sit the OICs.

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If unconfirmed by October 15, when Congress adjourns for the Undas holidays, Sixto Brillantes plans to resign. “I will tell the President to not reappoint me,” he said in an exclusive interview Thursday. “It’s not worth it; I will tell him to name somebody else.”

The confirmation hearings of Congress’ Commission on Appointments appear to have worn down Brillantes. “I didn’t expect it to be like this,” he confided, “It’s too political and tiresome, unpalatable for a man my age who’s working in government for the first time.” The 72-year-old former election lawyer clammed up when asked to expound. Given what past Comelec officials have gone through, one can imagine the relentless sinister requests from lawmakers. Perhaps, even admin bureaucrats lobbying for party mates with pending election cases.

Nominated in January, Brillantes needs so much to be confirmed as permanent chairman till 2015. Temporary status diminishes clout. He had had to be reappointed twice, after the CA bypassed him as Congress adjourned last March 26 and June 9. Brillantes has a five-year program to clean up the electoral system and the Comelec. This includes, he said, tightening of once-profligate spending, surveillance of election campaign money, revamping the agency, retiring aged regional directors, and breaking up the suppliers’ Mafia. “Unconfirmed, an agency head cannot be effective in reforms,” Brillantes sighed, “not even in disciplining personnel.” Notably, he used to harshly criticize three of the six commissioners he now collegially has to work with.

He beamed, however, when recounting accomplishments in the past eight months. One of his first acts was getting the en banc to alter the rules on automated election protests, to allow the scrutiny of contested ballots. This got the cases of even the rivals of his former politician-clients moving, for which they thanked him for his fairness. Another move was to investigate the continued collection by a contractor of fees for undelivered goods. Yet another was to stop the pileup of multimillion-peso un-liquidated cash advances.

Brillantes’ confirmation hangs on several issues. Foremost are his blood and professional ties to father and son Roque and Ruel Bello, both recently implicated in the rigging of the 2004 presidential polls. He swore to have removed them as law partners in 1992, but persistent murmurs are that they still operate for him. Then there are the assertions of Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Franklin Drilon. Allegedly he paid multimillion-peso pensions to indicted former chairman Ben Abalos, and promoted the poll manipulators of ex-commissioner Virgilio Garcillano. Brillantes denied having done both.

Most painful for him, Brillantes said, are accusations of one of his closest friends in the Comelec from way back, Ferdinand Rafanan. The erstwhile head of the legal section submitted to the CA last week a seven-point opposition to Brillantes’s confirmation, for:

• Abetting the six officers linked to the P690-million ballot-secrecy folder scams;

• Inducing Rafanan to work on the Ombudsman to reduce the six-month suspension of three of the six;

• Ignoring the reasons for costly delays in the preparations for last October’s barangay election;

• Bragging to once have bribed the commissioners and Comelec lawyers;

• Cajoling Rafanan to compromise internal investigations;

• Conflict of interest as election lawyer; and

• “Illegal” removal of Rafanan as chief lawyer.

The CA will deliberate this week whether to accept belatedly Rafanan’s affidavit. Coming as they do from a perceived crusader for clean elections, the charges are too serious for Brillantes to let pass un-refuted.

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