EDITORIAL - Chosen targets

It is good that Justice Secretary Leila de Lima has put the Comelec in its proper place. The poll body recently created a furor by asking more than 400 local government officials to step down following what it said was their failure to properly file their statements of campaign contributions and expenditures.

The Comelec statement raised a lot of eyebrows because it seems to make it appear that a simple order by the poll body is enough to erase and do away with the popular mandate that put all of these officials in their respective positions.

Besides, the Comelec did not seem to give any weight to the prospect of chaos that was likely to set in if, indeed, all 400 plus officials can just be made to vacate their positions upon its simple order. Thank God de Lima has clarified things by saying the Comelec cannot just order anyone to leave their posts.

According to de Lima, the proper procedure in cases like this would be for the poll body to file the appropriate cases. Only after the resolution of these cases can anyone be made to vacate a position or keep it, depending on the outcome.

But the clarification of de Lima, unfortunately, ended there at the doorstep of the Comelec. It did not go further. For example, de Lima did not put DILG Secretary Mar Roxas in his proper place after Roxas, on learning of the Comelec statement, echoed it by saying he was ready to remove the 400 if the Comelec says so.

Maybe de Lima was not prepared to touch the untouchables. And if de Lima cannot touch Roxas, even if his position on the matter was exactly the same as that of the Comelec (after the Comelec gave him the idea), the more she could not touch someone much higher than Roxas.

President Aquino, on another matter but still within the legal purview of de Lima to comment, defended Roxas in his ongoing tiff with Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez by saying he could have removed Romualdez from office based on the NDRRMC law for failing to adequately prepare for Yolanda.

Oh yeah? Since when does a mere disaster preparedness law have primacy over a popular mandate that installed Romualdez in his position in an uncontested free and democratic election? Has Aquino become the next dictator?

Surely, de Lima must have heard of this statement of Aquino, as well as that of Roxas. But clearly she does not have the figurative balls to take on her patrons, unlike the Comelec to which she owes neither allegiance nor subservience, she not being an elected official.